Pigs in a Blanket
by Akktri
Summary: Ellen Ripley is about to deliver a bundle of joy...in the wrong place.
1. Chapter 1: OBGYN

**Cavern located at 01:31, 44.2122205, -72.5584645 N44° 12.7332', W072° 33.5079'**

**Planet Jagalchi **

* * *

><p>Hungry. So hungry.<p>

I have run the length of this feeble planet and only found enough to whet my appetite.

With one claw, I grab hold of a small crustacean, only about two feet in length, and crack its shell, devouring it.

In the past, far in my distant memory, there rode wild beasts, six legged behemoths with no heads and wildly lashing tentacles. I ate them all.

Half of them I consumed before my yegxigm had developed, so breeding was not a concern.

The other half, well, in between my offspring and my own personal feeding, that was it. No more shaggy hooved Siovgol.

My children endured for a time, but most of them died of starvation.

Only Sshanburo remained, the one that taught me about the hard shelled Madfifo, but, sadly, even she died, due to a misstep on a loose chunk of rock overhanging a chasm.

I still hunger, and the urge to breed is overwhelming. My yegxigm has become so swollen that it causes me pain, but there is no receptacle in which to place my eggs.

I'm not going to make it. Even now I am shaking from low caloric intake, and the creatures in these caves, and even on the surface, are not enough for my needs.

I only have one chance left.

Hybernation.

Slow my metabolic processes for a few months, and wait for the livestock to repopulate itself.

That is my only hope.

* * *

><p><em>"When we arrived on Jagalchi, we thought the planet would be another Mars. That was before we found the dissolved bones."<em>

-Boris Stanislov, planetary geologist.

* * *

><p><strong>Base 657.3, Planet Jagalchi, 14:00<strong>

* * *

><p>My android doctor slides a rod over the stretched out belly of my pajama top, and a hologram of a fetus hovers above the table in front of me.<p>

I sigh in relief. Human. I don't know why I expected different, but it was reassuring to see a perfectly formed head and fat little digits instead of...

I shuddered, trying not to think about the dreams.

"I'm detecting no brain or heart defects," the doctor said in bored sounding tones. To induce calm, Type 322B androids were programmed to sound overly competent at the expense of bedside manner. "Sensors are not picking up any other abnormalities. The infant appears to be completely healthy, Ms. Ripley."

To make him nonthreatening as possible, Dr. Venn was designed to look like a human sloth, his posture slumped, shoulders rounded, flabby arms, fat stomach.

Behind his square glasses, the robot's beady eyes traveled up and down my body systematically.

Diagnostics scan. Borderline creepy.

the room was a concrete cube, lined with the usual tools of the trade. Self sterilizing tongue depressors, renewable cotton swabs, eye and nose scanners, blood pressure rings.

A monitor, serving as a fake window cum EKG machine, displayed a view of a shore with waves crashing on a beach.

"The nutrient patch I've affixed to your neck should provide compensation for your nutrient deficiencies."

He fell silent, idling, I suppose.

"And my baby is definitely male."

He nodded. "There have been no changes in reproductive equipment of the fetus."

An awkward silence followed as I waited in vain for humanity.

"Do you have any other medical problems which require my assistance?"

I was a million light years from earth, and I was speaking to a robot, but a pregnant woman with hormones has certain expectations about medical office visits of this type.

The doctor is supposed to be as excited as you are about the baby. They were supposed to be happy for you. Dr. Venn, however, treated me no differently than if I'd merely come in to treat a fungal infection.

"Dr. Venn," I frowned. "Did your builders forget to program the word `congratulations' into your verbal dictionary?"

"I congratulated you weeks ago when I informed you that you were pregnant and it was a boy."

I flushed red with anger. "Well maybe I want to hear it again."

The doctor smirked, one of the rare expressions of emotion this model could actually display. "Congratulations."

It'd have to do. I sighed and shook my head.

"Oh baby! That's wonderful!" a voice called from the door.

I looked up and found myself being scooped up in my boyfriend's muscular brown arms. He kissed me.

I smiled, gazing into his dark chocolate eyes.

Brett.

Sweat glistened on his bald head.

He still wore his black engineer's jumpsuit, made of a slick grime resistant material. The uniform that first caught my eye so many months ago.

Ex police officer. Boy Scout. Brains and brawn.

When I first got morning sickness and got checked out, we talked about settling down, getting a transport off this rock. I believed he had the connections and resources to do just that.

Get us a little house in the middle of a bustling city instead of solitary confinement on a glorified asteroid riddled with ammonia swamps.

"You still haven't knitted a space suit for him yet," Brett joked.

I laughed.

"We finally got all the oxygen-co2 compensators fixed. Is it too late to look at the baby?"

The doctor shrugs, then touches the rod to my stomach.

I see a flash, and I'm screaming, clutching my head.

It was an image from the dream again.

I saw an image on a sonogram, but it wasn't a baby.

Something else.

I was lying on a scaffold, lowering myself into a pit of molten steel.

A little beast, a white creature looking like a snake, explodes from my chest, and I hold it against me, so we both could die.

I blink and I only see a human fetus floating before me.

Brett squeezes my hand. "You okay?"

I nod. "I think it's just the isolation getting to me."

But then I shudder as I think about the vision of the huge snarling face.

I got a sense of déjà vu when I saw it. But why?

I've never see a thing like that before in all my waking life.

No eyes.

Distending its jaw.

It seemed so real.


	2. Chapter 2: Haddenite

The auto extractor is part drill, part jackhammer, part laser saw, useful for cutting valuable ores out of a mineral that shattered a regular diamond bit after only a few spins.

Haddanium, named after Dr. Kamara M. Haddix, who first discovered it. Dr. Haddix herself had broken several drills removing her samples, but we had the auto extractor.

People generally run the extractor by throwing their stomach over it, but I had to protect the baby, so I tried to make do with other methods. My hips, my knees. One time I tried my chest, but with the baby on the way _things are sensitive there, _so I opted for a sort of awkward upper body push up that left me weak and shaking at the end of the day.

There were five of us, drilling away on the near impregnable substance. Six, if you're counting boyfriends that just stand around and watch you with worried looks on their faces.

"This is macho bullshit, Ellen," Brett said.

I stopped drilling. I could just barely hear him.

"What?"

"I said this is macho bullshit. Your baby is due any day, and here you are extracting ores like nothing's the matter."

"_Trying to_ extract ores, you mean. I hadn't found a one today, because _your baby_ is causing me to throw up every five minutes."

"It's _our baby_," he corrected. "And you wouldn't be throwing up if you weren't trying to do a man's job with an extra passenger on board."

"Well excuse me for not being content to sit around in a gray cell knitting booties all day while the project runs behind!"

Before he could utter a word of protest, I pressed the bit and laser guide against the unyielding Haddanium.

"Always gotta be the Tomboy," he muttered with a shake of his head.

I stopped. "What?"

He cleared his throat. "I said you're a Tomboy. Sometimes it's the sexiest thing about you. At other times, well, it fucking pisses me off. I'm just sayin'."

My face had been Haddanium, but now I allowed a little sunshine to break out, smiling at him.

He rubbed my back, then left me to go work on machinery elsewhere on the base.

I drilled the rock, trying to ignore the baby's kicking.

The auto extractor chiseled the cracks around my target, loosening the weak points enough to knock the chunk free from the hidden ores.

So far we've found glowing sapphires with gold in their cores, a sort of turquoise that shifted patterns like a lava lamp, and anthracite coal.

Team B is uncovering a lead-like mineral that melts into liquid mercury. You need gas masks for that kind of work. I was actually on Team B for a long time, but when I started showing signs of pregnancy, I was allowed to transfer with a medical note.

The rock was hollow, and when I pried it loose, a swarm of Hell's Lice leaped out, landing on my face and chest, snapping at my flesh with their pincers. A larger one gouged my cheeks, and blood poured down from its claws.

The creatures, although somewhat like lobster, bore a stronger resemblance to genital lice. The other type of crab. Four claws instead of two, oddly excessive amounts of plating with oddly pointed and hairy ridges.

It didn't smell very good, having the thing over my mouth and nose, but I could breathe.

It only felt like I couldn't.

For a moment, I saw only a giant pink thing with legs like human fingers, a long slimy tail curling around my neck as a massive egg, soft, cockroach-like, dropped into my throat.

With a horrified shriek, I ripped the things off my face, then stared at them as they scurried down into a connecting cavern.

No eggs.

No tail.

It hadn't hurt me at all.

Well, only a few cuts.

Thankfully, Hell's Lice only ate some form of lichen, so they were harmless.

We ate the damned things for lunch every day.

Revolting crustaceans that tasted like liver, fermented pineapple, and Cap'n Crunch Berries.

Nearly catatonic, I threw the rest of them off my body.

"Hell's Lice," I repeated to myself.

I hadn't noticed it, but Si had been laughing at me the whole time.

The little spiky haired weasel.

"Remember that gag on Gilligan's Island with the crabs?" he guffawed as he pointed at me.

I scowled at the bony assed figure in the jeans and aviator jacket, grabbing my driller.

"Would you like me to shove this auto extractor up your rectal cavity and see what ores we can extract?"

Grinning smugly, he said, "I don't think you're ready for my rock hard ores."

"I think the laser saw will be enough to cut off anything that needs to be cut."

"Oooh."

I punted one of the Hell's Lice across the cave with a soccer kick.

In addition to yielding giant lice, the exposed crevice yielded the most important archaeological find of the century.

It was a metal icon of purposeful design, a clear sign that an intelligent lifeform existed on this rock hundreds, or maybe thousands of years ago, and, as I picked way at the rock surrounding it with a mineralogist's pick and a laser knife, I discovered the skeletal hand that still clutched it.

"Guys!" I called. "I found something!"

* * *

><p>"It was like a miracle, but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight. I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final dissolution there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there."<p>

-Bram Stoker, _Dracula_

* * *

><p>I form the shell of the cocoon with secretions from my anal ducts, which dry and harden in the cool air of the cave. A pair of tentacles will remain exposed, snapping me out of hibernation whenever my prey is foolhardy enough to create vibrations in the air, or on the ground.<p>

The cocoon will open on the front, allowing me a speedy exit, and a quick meal.

A Ss'sikhtokawij can stay this way for a long time

Months. Years, even.

But once I emerge, I will have to feed immediately. I will have only a few hours before starvation puts me in my final sleep.

There. Two more layers, and my cocoon will be complete.

Then I wait.


	3. Chapter 3: Skeleton

My team got together and drilled the thing out, assembling the pieces on a work table at the entrance of the cave. The table normally held tools, but we practically threw them on the floor to work on this.

Out of the five that worked our section of the cave, only the unfriendly Becky Capstan remained busy on the auto extractor. When it was assembled passably enough, the other four of us stood around the strange fossil, pondering its meaning.

Gina Miller, with her fat brown face and long curly hair, was leaning on her AE, silently gawking. In all the years I've worked on Jagalchi, I've never seen her that quiet before.

Simon was lighting a cigarette, not looking too happy about the little science project we were working on.

Bruce Hatch, our resident artist slash driller, had taken a break from drawing naked female torsos to sketch the skeleton in his grimy tablet computer. He looked like a redneck, and he refused to see Venn about his teeth.

The man gave me the creeps. I somehow doubted whether his doodlings would have any scientific value at all, but maybe that's just my bias from watching him leering at a screen while he sketched nipples on perfectly shaped breasts the size of watermelons. Characters that always have the same dumb looking faces that seem to say, "Oops, did that bra fall off?"

He'll probably use the skeleton in some monster comic, probably one where I'm running around with no clothes on while the thing chases after me. Like I said, creepy.

I tried to ignore him, focusing on assembling the skeleton.

We took hundreds of digital pictures before we took each of the bones out, so we had an idea of the structure, but a lot of it still didn't make a damn bit of sense.

The thing's head was like an ape, but it had fins sticking out of its cheeks, its mouth stuck in a round O like a bass. Two sets of eyes, two in front, two on the sides like a fish, but an ape nose. Upper body had a shell like a cockroach. It had a tail, covered in fish spines and an insect shell, its end tipped with a club like an ankielosaurus.

Dr. Venn explained all these parallels during the course of his examinations. Our other biologists were otherwise occupied, Charlie Jones on life support due to a violent allergic reaction to Hell Lice meat, Travis Duffley in the brig for using cameras to `observe biology' in the women's shower, so we took the android off his usual duties.

"This guy has seen a lot of action," Venn smirked. "The cracked ribs, the bones that have healed badly...almost looks like he was in a war."

"He probably died from eating Hell's Lice," Gina joked.

Si only looked annoyed at the mess. "Where are we going to put the tools now?"

Smirking, Venn said, "Looks like they're fine on the floor."

"This is archeology work," he said, taking a drag of his cigarette. "We're here to pull precious ores out of the rocks. That's it. This is a waste of time."

"Actually," Venn replied. "There's a possibility that several scientific foundations will be willing to endow large amounts of money to excavate further archeological samples of this type. Perhaps drilling on a different section will allow you to continue the drilling work you desire."

Si stubbed out his cigarette on Venn's neck, but the android didn't react.

I frowned at the skeleton. "You said it's a he. If it's male, why are the hips so wide?"

He chuckled. "I suppose a more accurate term would be `it'. This thing apparently bears the children, but also plays a role in fertilizing its own eggs."

I didn't bother asking how he came to that deduction. As a machine, the reasoning was doubtless sound enough, and based on the actual structure of the skeleton.

"What do you make of the icon he was holding?" I asked.

Venn picked it up, his eye scanning it with built in lasers. "Your chief mineralogist already gave the compound breakdown indicating highly advanced manufacturing technologies. The symbol doesn't match any mystical sign in my image library. If we're going by half resemblances, I'd say it vaguely resembles Sanskrit, though this creature has blended it with Japanese. If I were to be really creative, I'd translate it as `ocean famine', but honestly this is like a linguist trying to decipher a Korean work contract with the Hebrew alphabet. You can't build a translation of a language out of another language without a foundation language like Latin." He set it down on the table.

When my swollen stomach bumped it, he squinted and leaned closer. "The symbol just changed."

Venn paused. "I still don't know what it means. Let me try something."

He took the icon, waving it back and forth in front of me, touching it to my arm, my forehead, my chest.

When it touched my stomach, he smirked and said, "This thing likes your baby. A lot."

He placed the object on my belly, staring at the symbol.

"It's turning gold, but it's not the right chemical compound for the precious ore. It's an alloy of quartz, mica and something else."

He pulled it away. "That's odd. Now it's stuck like that."

"What do you think this thing is?" I asked.

"Could be anything. A piece of an engine, a valuable trinket, a religious artifact, or none of the above. Without a Rosetta Stone, I have nothing I can deduce with any certainty."

The other team came in, relieving us of work for the day. After leaving detailed instructions about the care of our fossils, we departed for our living quarters.

Crew quarters are arranged in communal fashion. we have a large shared `living room' are with entertainment and exercise machines, there's a bar, a cafeteria and a group shower. We take our turns with the toilets. We only have separate rooms for our beds and our clothing.

Furniture is the lightweight kind people can easily fold and carry through space. We have memory foam mattresses, better than those spring mattresses they had for us last year. Since we can't easily get luxury items like frames, we've all made do with artfully placed chunks of Haddanium. Furniture accents, Flintstones style.

Mr. Stewart, the nice guy we buried under hydroponics two months ago, had carefully selected each piece so that they fit together with the minimal of tool usage. He did a beautiful job.

At the base, we mostly had classic old movies, but we had entire decades of film to choose from. I lay on a futon in the main room, belly to the side, watching _The Notebook_ on the big screen monitor. Brett sat next to me, hand on the swell, feeling the baby kick.

He looked at the screen with disinterest. "You said the rock changed when it touched your belly?"

"Yeah," I muttered. "What do you think it means?"

Brett laughed. "Shoot, beats the hell out of me! Maybe junior is The One, and when he comes out, he's going to be able to do Kung Fu and float six feet above his crib."

I giggled. "You and your scifi movies."

He shrugged. "You asked."

I gazed into his dark brown eyes. "Is that what you really think?"

Brett shook his head. "Baby, it's just an alien mood rock, probably turns blue when you're constipated."

I laughed at that.

We ate dinner and went to bed.

Well, I did. Early, because of the baby.

I dreamed I was in Central Park in New York, with Brett, pushing a black stroller, one of those old style strollers, kind of a buggy with a top.

It was late spring, warm and comfortable enough to walk around in jeans and a t-shirt.

We pushed the stroller down a path beneath the Dakota, that fancy hotel they showed in Rosemary's Baby and Home Alone, watching the squirrels chatter and chase each other up a tree. Children flew kites.

The baby seemed oddly quiet.

I asked Brett, but he said she was only sleeping.

For a few feet, I accepted that explanation, but then I noticed a fire truck scream past, and then I noticed how heavy the stroller was getting.

"I'm going to check on him," I said, and I leaned over the lip and looked in.

Instead of a healthy light brown baby, I found myself staring at a large black insect with human teeth and no eyes.

It hissed at me, distending its jaw, and a second mouth shot out, snapping at my face.

I awoke in a cold sweat, gasping for breath.

Looking to my side, I could see that Brett was still out, probably playing poker or something.

Intending to get some warm milk and go to the bathroom, I sat up, turning on the light.

I nearly wet the bed.

Standing there by the door was Mr. Stewart., and he had gills.


	4. Chapter 4: Picking Bones

Balding.

White hair.

He still had on his jumpsuit like he intended to go crack another mineral seam with us.

But he also had gills.

Fins.

A tail.

Eyes on the sides of his head.

Just like the skeleton we'd unearthed.

Charles Stewart. We buried him in Cavern A17C.

Heart attack.

We were going to cremate him, but his burial instructions had us planting a sapling over the body. I remembered the planting vividly.

That, and the fact that Si sneaked in some cannabis seeds when we weren't looking at the grave.

Every time I go into hydroponics, I see it.

Chuck's Hemp Tree.

Yet the man was standing in my bedroom, silently mouthing words.

I rubbed my eyes, hoping I was dreaming, but the phantom stayed where it was.

Even the baby appeared to be frightened. He only kicked once, then seemed to retreat into my spinal column.

"Go home!" the specter seemed to be saying. Then he mouthed something about danger.

"Chuck?" I said.

He just gave me a sad look and turned away, vanishing through the wall.

Frightened out of my wits, I burst through the door in my pajamas, seeking out the comforting arms of my boyfriend.

The sound of coarse laughter led me to a Blackjack game near the bar.

Brett was holding a three of spades, a four of hearts, a joker and an ace of clubs. He smoked because he didn't expect me to be there.

Gina, beer in hand, Bruce, who I guess was sketching in between deals, and Gordon Mutane, our very difficult to understand communications engineer. Usual rogues gallery.

Si laid down his cards, causing everyone to groan in dismay and throw in their hands. The man is a shark.

While the cards were being shuffled, Brett chomped his cigarette and gave me a grin, wrapping his arm around my waist. "Hey, baby! Having trouble sleeping?"

I wanted to tell him about the ghost, but I felt I'd only get laughed at.

"Yeah," I said with a shrug. "I guess."

He took a puff of his cigarette, giving me this stare like he were trying to figure me out. "Bad dream?"

I grimaced. "You could say that."

"Aww."

He rested his head against my belly, squeezing me close.

The cigarette rolled in his mouth. "How about some Blackjack? You can play for me. Whattaya say? Wanna get dealt in?"

I frowned. "You know what they say about pregnancy and cigarette smoke."

Brett stubbbed out his cigarette in an ashtray. "How's that?"

I sighed as I stared at Gordon and Gina, still puffing away.

"That's all right. I...think I'll just...get some warm milk and ...watch a boring movie or something."

"_Titanic_?" he laughed.

I smiled a little. "Maybe."

That's pretty much what I did.

It was decades since the film first came out, but it was still watchable. For the first couple hours, at least.

As the boat on the screen sunk deeper and deeper into the Arctic waves, and I set aside my glass of milk, I dreamed I was standing in a child's bedroom on earth, fine brown dressers and bed frames like I'd seen in the movie, the warm sun beating down from the window.

I was combing my son's hair in front of a dirty mirror. He had to be at least twelve, and his hair was long and golden as a girl's. The clothing was also gender ambiguous. I could have been preening a teenaged girl.

The hair was matted and tangled, and as I combed, big clumps of it came off, exposing shiny pink flesh like a salmon.

More and more of this hair fell away, but it remained matted and tangled as ever.

At last, in a fit of frustration, I spun the child around, grasping her by the shoulders as I prepared to shake her. Or him.

I gasped. The face had my skin color, but no eyes. Just a mouth and a dolphin shaped head like that black thing I dreamed about last time.

Instead of attacking, it simply said, "What's wrong, mother?" As if what I saw were completely ordinary.

When I awoke, I found myself back in bed. Brett must have carried me to the room, though it amazed me how he could pull that off without waking me up or throwing his back out.

He slept with his back to me, having more than likely rolled over in his sleep.

Brett wasn't a sleep grabber like some. He was more inclined to roll off the bed, but he hadn't done that in months. Maybe it was the baby that changed him. Or the process of making the baby.

I tossed and turned for a few minutes with my eyes shut, but sleep wouldn't come.

Brett seemed to notice this, for he rolled over, looking kind of groggy, too tired to be playful. "What's wrong."

"I saw Chuck," I said. "Chuck Stewart." I told him what happened.

After a dramatic pause, he said, "Spooky."

We stared at each other in silence for a minute.

At last he said, "You're working too hard. The baby's kicking, the chemicals aren't going in the right place, and it's making you see weird shit."

"Fatigue?" I said.

He nodded. "Fatigue. Take the day off. You're entitled. The foreman will understand."

And then he grins. "Can't have you snap and do something crazy like shoving an auto extractor up Si's rectal cavity and drilling his rocks."

I laughed. "You heard about that?"

"Babe, you can't play Blackjack and not shoot the shit."

"Fine," I relented. "Maybe you're right."

"Honey, _you know_ I'm right."

I gave him a playful jab.

He kissed me, then rolled over and tried to sleep again.

I couldn't. I kept wondering if this planet had some sort of mummy's curse, that we should leave the place alone and just go elsewhere.

I sat up. There's nothing more boring than lying in bed and staring at the ceiling as you try and fail to sleep.

I tapped Brett's leg. "You think they'll let me assist Team D3?"

He dragged me back down to my pillow.

"Chill, you workaholic. Do you want to see Mr. Stewart again, or do you want to get some rest?"

"I can't," I said.

"You can't what?"

"I can't sleep."

He rubbed his face, appearing to have given up on sleep himself. "It's too bad I can't give you my normal prescription. A little whiskey, a little roll in the sack...instant sleepy time."

I rolled my eyes. "For you, maybe."

"I'd suggest the Green Haze, but I don't know if Junior will like that one any better."

"I'll go ask Venn," I said.

The good doctor was plugged into the wall like a toaster. He stood rigid against the wall, eyelids shut like he were sleeping as a cord ran electricity into his spinal column. His stomach synthesized electricity through various chemical processes, but during the night when no one's looking, he prefers the direct approach.

"Odd hour for a visit," he said when I came in.

He never really sleeps.

I watched him unplug himself.

"What's going on? Back pain? Nausea? Overactive bladder?"

"I don't know," I said. "I just can't sleep."

"How many hours ago have you ingested caffeine?"

I shook my head. "Yesterday at breakfast."

"Is it the baby?"

I frowned, rubbing my face. "I'm having nightmares."

"Describe them."

He gestured for me to lay on a futon in the corner of the room.

"The act of writing or describing the nightmare is often cathartic. Often the phrase you use to describe the situations provide clues about the underlying real life emotional distress."

And so I unraveled the dream to him, and we decided it had something to do with my fears of miscarriage and dying during childbirth, the `bug' possibly being Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or some other child killing disease, evident in the Grim Reaper-like image that faced me.

It all sounded plausible except for the fact I could swear I remembered seeing the creatures before, and not just from another dream as he prompted me to speculate.

He prescribed a recording of meditation techniques for a few days and told me to see him if it didn't work after that time.

As he was slowly loping his way back to the charger, he suddenly turned to me and said, "Oh, by the way. You're going to need to find new site for the skeleton. Mr. Goedicke has been tampering with your find."

"What!" I cried. "That bastard!"

Dennis Goedicke is the project manager. Big, intimidating man with glasses, a goatee and a mustache. With his thick muscles and shiny shaved head, he looked like a member of an Aryan Nation prison gang, and his cold blue-gray eyes would be at home on a serial killer. Even his gray jumpsuit could have worked as a prison uniform. I often pictured bolts on that thick neck, and tried not to smile.

When I showed up at the job site roughly four hours before my shift, I wasn't in a smiling mood.

The skeleton had been carelessly scattered on the floor, replaced by busy sample analyzers and a large machine that strips Haddanium off chunks of ore.

The skull of our fossil was crushed, the tibia and fibia snapped into smaller pieces, ribs tossed every which way, mostly shattered like the discarded breast bones from a Thanksgiving turkey.

I've lived in this male oriented mining facility for months, so I'm not afraid of any man, especially my skinhead boss. If he fired me, it would be a blessing, because then I'd be able to go home. If he tried to kill me, or something worse, I'd know exactly where to hit a man to leave him crying on the floor in a fetal position.

The man was sipping coffee, studying one of his precious swirling turquoise samples like nothing were wrong. Behind him, Watson, Miller and Hetfield were busy ripping my mineral seam apart, doubtless pulverizing bones, pottery and other important discoveries to powder.

I was dressed in carnation pink cable knit maternity wear patterned with little dogs, but my anger burned so hot, it wouldn't have mattered if I had on a clown costume.

"What is the meaning of this!" I shouted.

"A mining operation, Ms. Ripley," he said matter-of-factly. "What does it look like?"

"It looks like you're ruining fossils and demolishing valuable scientific evidence! Erasing whole histories for the sake of a few shiny rocks!"

Mr. Goedicke slapped his hands on my shoulders, glaring at me like an enraged but strangely calm bull. "Ms. Ripley, this is a mining operation, not a scientific expedition. You were brought here solely for the purpose of extracting valuable minerals, not collecting archeological specimens for a museum. This is the charter you signed, so that's what you presumably agreed to. Are we reading from the same page, Ms. Ripley?"

I reluctantly nodded, but didn't look in his eyes. I might not be afraid of men, but I am not immune to psychological manipulation, especially when the manipulator insists in breathing in my face.

"You seem uncertain, Ellen. Am I wrong in saying that you were hired to this outfit for the specific purpose of extracting mineral ores, or is it I who am mistaken? I want you to tell me, because both answers can't possibly be right."

Using my first name. Like we were friends.

"You're right," I muttered reluctantly.

"What?" he said, adding insult to injury.

"I said you're right!"

"Are you sure? I still don't see much certainty, Ms. Ripley."

I glared at him looking dead in his eyes. "Go to hell."

He rubbed my shoulder. "Look. Ellen," he said in condescending tones. "I know you're pregnant, but this isn't how you speak to a superior officer."

"I can talk to you any damn way I want," I growled. "What are you going to do? Fire me? It's not like you can afford to ship me away..."

His eyes bore down on me like impassive ice chips. "Would you like me to put you back on mercury mining?"

I gasped. "You bastard!"

Goedicke waved his hands like it were outside his control to avoid doing so.

"You can't force me to do that, either."

"Can't I? What if I put a restriction on the supplies you need? Might make things kind of difficult for the baby, but if you want to play this game..."

"What jail did you escape from," I muttered.

There he was, rubbing my shoulders like I gave him permission, talking to me like he talked to Gina when she asked him to help her take off those extra pounds. I was glad he didn't feel the urge to rub anything else.

"Ellen. I really don't want to hurt you or your baby if I don't have to. You've done a lot of good work for this site. Could have been better had you been able to run the machines like the others..."

In other words, `had I not gotten knocked up.'

"But you're doing well. I always see you as my special project, looking for ways to improve your work."

I shuddered at the thought of him singling me out.

"My advice: Forget about the archeology until you leave. Just do your job. Take care of the baby, and you can go home with a nice bonus in a few months. Ninety solar days. That's all I'm asking. That's not too much for you, is it, Ellen?"

I sighed. "Fine. You don't care about science. I understand that. Can I go now?"

He didn't let go.

"That's not the answer I wanted to hear."

"What the fuck do you want me to say!" I shouted. "You say you're going to get ores, hell or high water, you say forget the fossils, and then you threaten me!

"How's this: This is bullshit, you're an asshole, but I won't fight your decision because you're the boss! How's that!"

"Ellen," he scolded.

"Can I go now."

Before he could continue his attempts to force words into my mouth, I see a chunky Navajo woman marching up to him. Spotted Owl Martinez, the woman who always sings showtunes in Diné when she's drilling.

"Sir," she said in an urgent tone. "We've found another fossil."

"Plow through it," Dennis said indifferently.

"That's the problem, sir. We can't."


	5. Chapter 5: The Gate

Rick Henderson was an overweight young man with buzz cut hair and a slack face. He looked more like a grocery store butcher than a miner. I barely spoke to him due to him working second shift.

Rick claimed to have done black ops for Unified Government Intelligence, going on secret missions and helping the International CDC, but he spent every day brainlessly drilling Haddanium month after month just like everyone else in this hell hole.

His pasty, flabby armed companion Will was just as sketchy, but in a different way. Will didn't talk so much as mutter in low tones, and when he did, he would tell me things like how he was going to take the next ship to earth and make a million dollars as a rapper, or an air equipment repairman. He also claimed to be good friends with famous big time musicians I'd never heard of.

As his square glasses peered at our newest find, he uttered another nugget.

"I heard an Arab mining outfit on Shango 9 found a door just like this." He puffed smoke from his cigarette. "Treasure vault full of silver and gold and shit. Gold coffins in every room, every one of them covered in fat diamonds." He stuck the cigarette between two fingers and formed the shape of a grapefruit sized diamond with his hand. "_Fat._ Never had to work a day in their lives again. The whole team. Mansions. Drugs. Hookers. Whatever they wanted. Forever."

We were staring at a monument someone had chiseled out of Haddanium. Piles of Haddanium lay strewn around, but you could still tell that it was the entrance to some kind of pyramid, or a mausoleum. A plain, blocky structure, vaguely triangular, carved from top to bottom with indecipherable runes and abstract symbols. A cold chill ran down my back just looking at the thing. I silently prayed they'd never be able to open it.

The monument was in a larger cavern than my site, filled with narrow stalactites with braided formations that let light through the gaps. The urine smell of ammonia wafted up from the lake at the far end of the cave. I was pretty sure ammonia was okay for the baby, as long as I didn't hang my face over the pool and breathe in. A million pet owning parents can't be wrong.

I was still in my pajamas, but I had to see what the fuss was about. A monument that couldn't be drilled...

Tarnisha, a tiny little twenty year old black girl with a button nose, listened with wide eyed amazement at Will's story.

"As if they needed the money," she muttered. "Probably built themselves a solid gold swimming pool."

Will puffed out a small cloud. "I know. But what if this is our turn? We only need to figure out how to open the door."

"Are you sure the AE doesn't work on it?" Dennis asked.

I couldn't remain quiet any longer. "I really don't think we should open this thing," I blurted.

Dennis whirled around to browbeat me again. "Ellen, did I or did I not make myself clear about the objectives of this operation in our last discussion?"

I sighed, not replying.

He frowned at my outfit. "Ellen," he said, grabbing my shoulders. "You're tired. You don't think logically when you're tired. Why don't you return to bed, so we can have a nice rational discussion about it, around, say, 13:00?"

"My shift starts at-" I began to protest, but he raised a silencing hand. "I'm giving you an exemption. I insist." And he waved me away.

"How come she gets to sleep in?" Tarnisha complained.

Dennis just gave her a dismissive, "We'll talk about it later."

As I was leaving, I could hear Rick saying in his usual falsetto, "The way I heard it happen, they found a machine that turned granite into pure gold, but it wasn't on Shango, it was on Archeron, on the far side of the planet. Some guy got greedy when he found it, and there was a fight. Someone set off explosives and the whole place caved in on top of them. Only one miner escaped, and he came away with nothing. They say the machine's still buried under a million tons of granite." He chuckled. "Happy digging."

I returned to my work site, frowning at the second shift team carelessly tearing apart the walls.

They'd found more bones, but discarded them on the floor without a care for what they were looking at.

I noticed the strange little icon we'd found earlier on the ground next to the work table, not quite discarded, but placed right against the table on the rubble strewn floor as if someone couldn't decide whether or not to throw it away. Like the bones.

I don't know what possessed me to take it. Perhaps it was just laying claim to an undervalued historical artifact, or the idea of someday collecting the bones and giving the skeleton a proper burial, despite the fact I couldn't actually bring myself to take the bones. With all the nightmares, I still don't completely know why I did it, but I took it with me to crew quarters.

I still couldn't sleep. I gave it up, taking a shower.

When I got out, I laid down on the couch and glanced at a PDF about mothering on my tablet, lost interest, started reading my _Twilight_ e-book instead.

The crew computer contained more than a hundred terabytes of digital entertainment, books, movies, music, practically a Library of Congress in a plastic cube the size of a child's lunch box.

Nobody on my team played the games, but it had those too. Rick was rumored to be an expert in the sniper / tactical games, and wouldn't show up to his shift at all if the system didn't automatically shut off thirty minutes before his shift started.

The trouble with e-books is that they're digital and your eyes start hurting after a few hours of staring at the screen. I set the so-called `book' aside and napped a little.

No dreams this time. Instead, I was awakened by Si yelling, "Ripley! We need the stone! Where'd you put it?"

"What stone?" I muttered groggily.

He looked at me like I were stupid. "You know, the thing you dug up! It changes color! Where is it?"

Oh.

That.

Before I could get up, he grabs it off the Haddanium end table I'd left it on.

I sat up quickly. "Wait. What-"

He was already on his way out.

I was wearing my maternity clothes, a loose fitting burgundy top and pants. I wasn't as ridiculous looking as I had been a few hours before, so I donned my boots (uncomfortably tight due to the swelling you get from pregnancy), and hurried after the man.

I bumped into Brett a few feet from the door.

He grabbed my arms. "Whoa, sugar. Where you off to in such a rush?"

"Si has the icon. He's going to open the vault, tomb, whatever it is."

He frowned. "What vault?"

We went back together.

Second shift never left the site of the monument. No one wanted to miss out on their cut.

"I'm going to take that gold and buy a yacht," Si said as he pressed the icon against various runes.

He puffed his cigarette. "It'll be just like a house. I'll wake up, go to a bar, eat at the best restaurant I can find, in that order. Spend the rest of the day water skiing and wind surfing."

"How is this different from the shit we've already dug up?" Gina asked.

Si shook some ashes off his filter. "Because those ores are literally shit. It's about as valuable as coal. That's why we're still stuck in this asscrack of a planet instead of riding back loaded like sultans."

"The company keeps cutting our revenues," said Bruce. "That's why we need to get this thing open. It's the difference between ten percent of a hundred and ten percent of a thousand."

Dennis, who was present, didn't disagree.

"Wait," my boyfriend protested. "How do you even know there's gold in there? What if it's nothing but a bunch of shriveled mummies and crumbling papers?"

"You should never disturb the bones of the dead," Spotted Owl agreed.

Si puffed and faced our barely audible information source. "Will. How much gold was in that place on Shango?"

"Stacks." He raised a hand to measure an imaginary waist high pile. "This high. Stacks and stacks of gold. The door looked just like this one. I saw pictures."

Brett just frowned. "If it looks like bullshit, and smells like bullshit," he muttered.

Dennis glared at me in annoyance. "I thought I told you to take a rest."

"I can't sleep," I said.

Before he could say something, I said, "I'm feeling better." And then I lied to him, telling him I really was stressed out and how I really wasn't thinking clearly about the purpose of the operation. It made me sick to my stomach, but it was either that or being sent away. Those agonizingly dull moments in crew quarters had done their job. I had to know what was in there. I just had to.

Si pressed the icon into a rune near the door. It stayed in place when he let go, but nothing happened.

"Obviously it goes there," he said. "The shape is perfect. It's not falling off, so why isn't it doing anything?"

"Maybe it needs to be hammered in," Gina suggested.

Si slammed the object with his fist a few times, but nothing happened. A couple times he hit it so hard that he looked in pain.

"Dammit," he groaned.

"You know what this reminds me of?" Spotted Owl as she stared at the runes. "You know those confusing pictures on the back of Christian children's magazines? The ones that hurt your head?"

"No," said Will. "No I don't."

She pointed at a rune. "That looks like a carrot."

Her finger moved to another tapered shape. "And that one looks like the underside of a fish."

Si rolled his cigarette in his mouth. "You want us to circle everything with a red pen or something? Call me crazy, but I think that would be a tad counterproductive. Call it a hunch."

"And what are you going to do? Bang it with your fist again?"

"No, I'm going to bang it with your fucking head."

"You try it, and I'll shove that stupid piece of shit..._whatever it is_, so far up your ass you'll have to sit on that wall to open it."

"Children!" Dennis scolded. "Do I need to put you both in time out, or are we going to get this wall opened sometime today?"

"Listen, asshole," Spotted Owl said. "You can make up any deadline you want, but it ain't happening if Mother Nature says it ain't happening."

He narrowed his eyes. "It sounds like you've got the inside track. Please enlighten the class on how you intend to convince Mother Nature to open this wall."

She only shrugged. "Mother Nature says you're fucked."

Dennis glanced at Rick. "Who has a hammer?"

For the next ten minutes, various methods were employed. Hammers, miniature jackhammers, an assortment of blunt objects.

They were discussing explosive charges, and Will had just placed a package of Nitro 9 and a detonator when I heard Dr. Venn saying, "Mind if I make a suggestion?"


	6. Chapter 6: Keymaster

The idea was obvious to everyone on my team. After all, the icon had changed when I touched it.

"Why do you think this will work?" Will asked as I was directed to the stone slab that presumably served as a door.

Dr. Venn explained the phenomenon with the icon, then added, "It's possible that we are dealing with the technology of a matriarchal civilization, one in which pregnant females have an especially elevated ranking."

"In others words," Will muttered. "It's exactly the same as ours."

I frowned at him. "You shouldn't talk about things you know nothing about."

"Funny. I thought having a pregnant psycho ex-girlfriend would count."

I just rolled my eyes.

Marching to the door, I stopped short of touching the icon.

I really didn't want to open this thing, if it, in fact, could actually be opened and wasn't just an elaborate facade.

When I turned and looked back, everyone was staring at me impatiently, Dennis the most impatient looking of all.

Mustering up my courage, I spoke firmly and flatly. "No."

That yielded frustrated groans from both crews.

"What do you mean no!" Si protested.

"I won't do it."

And as the protesting got more animated, I added, "We don't know who or what is in there. It could be anything. We don't know for a fact that there's treasure in there. We could be walking into a trap."

Si shook his head in frustration. "We also could be completely safe, and you're just being a bitch."

Before I could tell him off, Gina chimed in with, "You don't even know if it does anything. Maybe it doesn't even work, and you're freaking out over nothing."

Although the argument was logical, I felt, deep down in my gut, that this thing was going to work.

"What if it's, I don't know, some kind of explosive, or biological agent, and I end up arming it?"

"We'd handle it with the normal safety and hazards procedures," Dennis said in tones that were supposed to sound soothing, but weren't. "Every step of the way, we will be following standard safety protocol."

I glanced at the icon behind me and shuddered.

It reminded me of a dream. The kind of nightmare that, upon your awaking, hides behind a blind spot in your consciousness until you see something that triggers it.

In that dream I saw death.

"No. I don't care what you tell me. I'm not doing it. It doesn't feel right."

The man breathed through his nostrils like a frustrated bull. His face looked like he were ready to scream.

"Why doesn't it feel right?"

"I have a bad feeling. I saw it in a dream. People died."

He again gave me unwanted shoulder massages.

"Ellen. That was a dream. Dreams are not reality. Am I wrong?"

When I didn't answer, his fingers prodded uncomfortably through the fabric of my blouse, digging into my skin.

"Have you actually seen a unicorn flying around? Do you often encounter talking jellybeans or blue elephants?" I heard some people chuckling at his ridiculous comments, but it only made his argument more stinging. "Or would you agree that they're nothing but meaningless psychological disturbances?"

"Well, not meaningless," I blurted.

"Go for a section eight!" I heard someone hissing. "You'll go home early!"

"I'm sorry. _Symbolic,_ then." He made it sound like the two were essentially the same word. "Not real. Would you agree?"

"Well, yes," I stammered. "Now that you put it that way...but..." I frowned at the gate. "That's something different. I never saw it before in my life, but it was there. In my dream. It has to mean something."

He squeezed my arms in an unpleasant way. "Ellen, you're holding up the whole operation, and if this doesn't work, it'll be for no good reason."

His hot breath washed over me, filling my nostrils with the smells of half digested Hell's Lice, rations and coffee. It reminded me of vomit. "Don't tell me you don't remember our little discussion."

"Yeah," I said, raising my voice so that the others could hear. "You said to stay out of the way of progress or you'd put me back on mercury mining so I could have a miscarriage."

He gave his audience a sideways glance. "That's not what I said!"

"Maybe not, but that's what you implied. And now you're going to make me inhale toxic fumes if I don't open this thing that might be the death of us all."

His eyes bore straight into mine like a mad hypnotist.

"Listen to me, Ellen. I don't care if it opens or not, but you've got to at least try. Just touch the damn thing. Shove it a little. See if anything happens. That's all I ask."

"But I know something will happen," I said.

In the background, I could hear Gina commenting, "She needs to have a psychological review."

Dennis ignored this. His piercing eyes bored into me. "Why? Because you saw it in a dream?" He sighed. "You really want your baby exposed to mercury poisoning, don't you?"

"No!" I shouted.

"Then do what we say. Touch the symbol."

Brett had been listening the whole time, but he hadn't interfered because Mr. Goedicke is his boss too, and I guess he figured I had things under control. But now he stepped in, tapping the man on the shoulder.

Dennis didn't look.

"I got five reasons why you should leave my woman alone!" he said.

The boss man turned to look. "Oh yeah? Name one."

Brett answered him with a fist to the face.

Brett is big, but Dennis is bigger, so when he landed a fist into the side of my boyfriend's head, he hit the floor.

Mr. Goedicke's reasons, it seemed, were more compelling.

"Brett!" I shouted.

"Take him to the brig!" Dennis growled.

Nobody moved.

"Certainly one of you values his or her job enough to put this man away!"

"What," Will said. "And let everyone else claim all the shit?"

At last Spotted Owl took on the task, dragging my boyfriend to his feet and leading him away. I tried to follow, but Dennis held me back.

Silently, he clamped his large hand around my wrist, dragging me to the icon, and slapped my hand down on it.

With angry grinding sounds, the object glowed purple, slowly sinking into the Haddanium.

Everyone around me cheered as the giant rock slab, immune to drills, cracked open, inch by inch, tantalizing the eye with a sliver of golden light.

"Damn," Will breathed, awestruck as the slab rose higher.

Dr. Venn eyed the door closely. "It's remarkable that the mechanism is in working condition after so many centuries of disuse!"

"That looks like water," Gina said as she stared at a wavy yellow-orange reflection.

Dennis was apparently seeing a future of panning, for he blurted, "We have sieves in the kitchen. Someone go grab a couple."

Will didn't get it. "What, are we making spaghetti now?"

"If you want to fish gold nuggets out of ammonia with your bare hands, be my guest. I was just trying to make it easier."

Tarnisha cast her companions a distrustful glance, then ran off in the direction of the cafeteria.

The aperture widened, the golden illumination spreading like a smile.


	7. Chapter 7: The Stables

The aperture widened further, and I could see a darkened corridor, lined with elaborately carved pillars.

As ornate as it was, I couldn't see any treasure. It was hardly King Tut's Tomb.

"I don't see any gold," Gina frowned.

"This whole structure indicates an intelligent civilization," Dennis said. "And, more importantly, an economy."

"Economy means treasure," said Rick.

Si was grinning ear to ear. "And that means gold must be hidden in there someplace."

"Economic systems are based on scarcity," said the android. "If anything, judging by the low availability of hydrogen and oxygen on this planet, their treasure troves may be filled with gallons upon gallons of water."

Dennis looked unperturbed. "If there's only water in that vault, I'll take it. Abolishing water rationing would be a great boost to morale."

"To have a real bath!" Gina moaned. "Or a swimming pool for that matter!"

"Water's bullshit," said Will. "If I can leave this dried up rock with some gold statues, I'll happily pass on drinking and showers until I get back."

"How can you live a day without drinking water?" Si asked.

Will lives on carbonated soft drinks and beer, and he's given a lot of thought to why it's disgusting to drink water. He doesn't get to make his speech.

"If you do that," Gina said with disgust, "I'll _happily_ spray your filthy ass with a fire hose."

"You need to scrub your dirty ass first."

"Children!" Dennis scolded.

The gate rumbled to a stop at the upper arch of the door, making a secure sounding clamping noise.

The boss marched up to the opening.

"Team, once we're in there, spread out. If there's anything that looks remotely dangerous, I want to be notified ASAP. All claimed treasure will be reported to me immediately. Failure to do so will result in punitive measures and a dock in pay. Understood?"

He mostly got "Yes sirs".

"I thought a dock in pay _was_ punitive," said Rick.

"Believe me, you don't know the meaning of the word."

Tarnisha returned to the cavern clutching two large metal colanders, panting and gasping for breath.

Dennis turned around and faced the team.

"This expedition is completely voluntary."

Glancing at me, the indirectly at our group, he continued, "You're welcome to return to crew quarters. Rest up. Regular mining schedules will resume in seventy two hours."

Nobody moved.

I thought about going back to bed, or checking on Brett, but I did neither.

I wanted to know.

I wanted to see if my foreboding dreams were genuine warnings or merely murmurings of a troubled subconscious.

So when the team moved in, so did I.

The first fifty yards of the tunnel was a straight line. What we thought were side passages were actually blocked by tall sheets of glass.

Really, `glass' isn't the best description, for it rippled like water, and when Si tried to smash one, it didn't break.

When Venn examined it, he muttered, "They've developed their own bulletproof glass. This stuff is actually made out of a gold derivative, which explains the yellow-orange shimmering you saw when you first opened the door."

"Is it valuable?" Si asked.

Venn chuckled. "Sure. If you can pry it out of its Haddanium frame!"

As Si left to go get an AE, I stared at the `glass', watching it shimmer like a lazy pond.

Beyond I could see a small chamber with a door, containing the mummified remains of a headless four legged beast in a fetal position, vaguely horse-like in its skeletal structure, surrounded by what I presumed to be food and water dishes.

I looked through the windows on the other side and found more of the same.

Seeing Rick peering through the `glass' opposite to mine, I called, "What do you see?"

He gave me a shrug. "Looks like they've pulled a decapitated horse out of a bog."

Will pressed his face against the clear gold.

"They didn't waste any money on their animals."

"Any guesses about what this place is?" I asked.

"It appears to be a stable," said Venn. "Though the stable boy seems to have abandoned his post."

The corridor came to a stop in front of a giant door, and tunnels forking away from it in two directions.

Without a word, Tarnisha marched off to the left with her metal strainers, Bruce to the right. The rest of us stood staring at the door.

Si squinted at the runes for a moment before shouting, "Pregnant-Key!"

When the others failed to understand his clever joke, he said, "Someone, anyone, go get that thing from the outer door. Looks like we'll be needing it again."

"I don't know if that's such a good idea," Rick said. "Ever watch _Indiana Jones_? You might cause a collapse."

Dennis thoughtfully stroked his goatee for a moment.

"As silly as that sounds, he's absolutely right. If we pull out that icon, there's a chance the outer door could close us in here forever. We'll have to figure out another way."

"Do we have a Jaws of Life around here somewhere?"

"We have a Cave-In Assist Tool," Gina said. "But it's way over at Cavern 72M."

Rick sighed. "I still don't understand why we don't have one of those in every cavern."

"Because it's expensive," said Dennis. "Because we're careful. Because it's Haddanium, not granite or limestone. Because we have evac drills to limit the need to use the CAT340."

"The CAT has all terrain wheels, early warning systems for chasms and dangerous formations, and it can travel at speeds upwards from sixty five miles per hour."

We all stared at the android.

I was unimpressed. "How do we know that door won't just slice the CAT in half?"

"It can withstand Haddanium collapses," Venn shrugged.

"Can you make it come here, _at a speed upwards from sixty five miles per hour_?" Si asked.

"You know how poorly radio waves travel underground," said Dr. Venn. "I can try, but I can't guarantee we'll get its attention."

Gina frowned. "Then how would it save us in a cave-in?"

"You activate it with microwave radiation," said Dennis. "The transponder is in my office."

Will laughed. "So you're going to cook a burrito and make it come over here?"

The boss groaned, rubbing his face in frustration.

"The sun can broadcast energy waves through entire planets without interference," said the robot. "While the technology hasn't been developed enough to send messages through this media (the energy requirements would be, pardon the pun, astronomical), we use the energy waves to activate machines. Of course, we don't have an unlimited supply of power like the sun, so we can only manage a distance of thirty miles. Cavern 72M is only twenty, so you should be good."

"So who's going to get the microwave?"

No one moved. My team looked like a bunch of cutthroat pirates hovering over a locked treasure chest.

After a long, tense staring match, Rick rounded his shoulders and said, "All right. I'll do it."

Dennis handed him a key, and off he went.

As he slowly shuffled out the entrance, I noticed Tarnisha running back to us.

"There's nothing back there," she said. "Just a bunch of shit."

"What...kind of _shit_." Dennis asked.

Dennis claims to be a Christian, though his behavior doesn't do the faith any favors. One thing to his credit, though. He very rarely cursed, and I never heard him swear. This is why it amused me when he got flustered and tried to act like he hadn't used profanity.

Steamrolling over his verbal faux pas, he quickly blurted, "What exactly did you see, Ms. Powell?"

Tarnisha shrugged. "Nothing much. Some empty rooms with a bunch of dead bodies, the back of the rooms with those shriveled horse things, mostly a lot of junk."

She dug one of those stone icons out of her jumpsuit.

"Oh, and I found _this_."


	8. Chapter 8: Gold Rush

A soft sun-like glow illuminated the chamber from an unknown source, likely a clever manipulation of surface light or a type of alien light bulb that could last for centuries without burning out. In addition to this, the team had also brought in a set of miner's Hover Lamps, providing a harsh blinding glare perfect for dust choked extraction sites.

Upon receiving Tarnisha's icon (actually, swiping it out of her hands), Dennis dragged one of these lamps closer, giving it a closer examination.

The icon looked very similar to the one we used outside. Same vaguely hexagonal shape, same material. The inlaid design looked different, but we didn't have to guess about its function.

Dennis placed the object on an appropriate looking socket, staring at me expectantly.

I hesitated, but knowing I really had no choice in the matter, I didn't hesitate long.

I placed my palm on the icon, waiting for it to sink in the wall and open the door.

At first, nothing happened, and I almost felt happy, smirking as I listened to Bruce complaining about how the "fucking tomb" was "screwing up his tablet." No bog mummy horses to chase around his bare breasted adolescent fantasies. Waah.

Gina muttered something about making me rub the icon across my pregnant belly, but I ignored it.

Just when I thought life was going to go back to normal, I hear a click, and the door starts making grinding sounds.

While we waited for the slow door to open, Tarnisha waved her colanders at Dennis. "You really think we're going to need these?"

"Not sure, he said. "Anything's possible."

The door reached its apex, revealing a long honeycomb shaped tunnel.

This tunnel consisted of three aisles, two narrow ones on one side, and a wide one in the middle, separated by two long Haddanium troughs covered by triangular glass (or rather, see through gold) enclosures reminding me of skylights featured on certain fancy office buildings.

At the darkened far end, I could see a gate flanked with a pair of white statues, feline in form. Golden waves danced on the walls and ceiling.

"Damn," Will breathed as he strolled in.

Bruce peered into one of the enclosures and let out a whoop.

"Gold!" he shouted, pointing at it. "A whole fucking river of it!"

He pressed his face to the glass, and I looked too.

It was exactly as he said. A whole river of the precious metal, strangely liquified as if heated a few thousand degrees, but leaving the glass fog free and cool to the touch. A golden sewer grate at one end spewed the liquid in endless waves, washing out a grating to God knows where.

Unsurprisingly, the first thing Bruce did was bang his fist against the transparent metal with all his might. I prayed he would break his hand.

"I believe this will help," Doctor Venn said, pushing a circular rune below the glass. "No sense delaying production with unnecessary bone fractures."

Bruce opened his mouth, but before he could ask for an explanation, he was silenced by the alien glass grinding open.

"I am becoming more fluent in the meanings of these symbols," Venn explained. "I made an educated guess."

The cover retracted backwards in stages like the armor on the Batmobile. Our team artist leaned over the lip, gazing in with greedy eyes.

He dug a stylus out of his pocket, sticking it in the liquid, then frowned as he pulled out a melted stick with an oozing glob of gold dripping down on his fingers.

He yelped when a glob hit his skin, dropping the whole stylus into the gold.

"Dammit!" he shouted. "How the hell do we get this shit out?"

"The same way jewelers make necklaces out of it," Dennis said calmly.

"Necklaces shit!" Bruce said. "I want a fucking bar!"

A skeletal claw reached out of the golden river, grabbing him by the collar of his jumpsuit.

In one quick motion, it yanked him down with a terrified scream.

A second later, there was no more screaming. His head had just gone gold on the Billboard Top 40.

"Bruce!" I screamed, horrified beyond all rational thought. Scumbag or not, he was a human being. That could have easily been me.

Even if the gold had different properties and melted in a cold liquid state, I was certain no one could survive that. I backed away in fright, knowing there was absolutely nothing I could do.

"Pull him out!" Dennis yelled. "If you don't want a man's death on your conscience, I suggest you do it quickly!"

And then he starts tugging Bruce's shoulders. "Someone grab his legs!"

The first two to respond were Gina and Will. They acted quickly, pulling the poor victim's legs with all of their strength.

I heard a sickening pop, then all three fell to the floor clutching a gold splattered decapitated corpse.

"Jesus," Will cried.

Gina screamed.


	9. Chapter 9: White Sphinx

Bruce was dead. My coworkers laid the body carefully in the middle of the aisle, hands at his sides, to keep the claw from dragging the rest of his body in.

Gina was so shaken by the ordeal that she shivered by the entrance, trembling fingers holding a cigarette to her lips as she stared at a wall.

Doctor Venn touched the corpse, staring at it closely. "I'm afraid my medical services have little use in this particular situation. I can provide a detailed analysis of his medical condition prior to the decapitation if you wish..."

We stared at the android in shock. We all understood intellectually that he was a machine that had only an illusion of human emotion, but hearing him speak in such a detached clinical manner like this was jarring.

"That won't be necessary," Dennis said.

"Would you like to evaluate the body for organ donation?"

More shocked stares.

"Pass."

"As you wish, sir."

"I got the transponder!" I heard Rick calling from behind me. "You want me to call the CAT over here?"

He couldn't have picked a worse time to show up.

"I'll take it," Dennis said, looking annoyed.

When he handed the little black object to him, he suddenly noticed the body on the floor.

"God! what happened to Bruce?"

"Long story," Dennis said.

No one felt bold enough to give him an explanation. I think we all felt a little sick. Even Will, who tends to play the tough guy.

Rick backed away. "Is it going to be longer if I stay here, or do you have the guy in the brig already?"

"It's not a guy," said Tarnisha. "It's a thing."

She pointed at the gold. "In there."

Rick peered over the side of the trough and whistled. "What do you think happened to his head?"

"The thing probably ate it," she replied.

"An unknown lifeform has decapitated Mr. Hatch," Dr. Venn explained. "Markings on the neck are consistent with animal bites and clawings."

"What happened to safety protocol?" I cried as I stared at the boss man standing over the corpse. "Was that just a lot of bullshit?"

"Safety protocol doesn't entail planning for murderous ghouls lurking in golden rivers." He frowned at the body. "Or a lack of common sense."

We cringed at this statement, but Mr. Goedicke always tends to talk with such authority that we don't argue or challenge him.

"Interesting," Venn said as he leaned over the river. "This vault has been sealed for centuries, and yet there appear to be lifeforms down there. Carnivorous, in fact, judging by our tragic incident. It begs the question of what they've been living on all this time."

"`Appear'?" Tarnisha cried indignantly. "`Appear'? Really? The thing pops up and eats Bruce's head, and you only think it `_appears_' to have lifeforms in it?"

Venn shrugged. "Such an advanced civilization may have created machines that simulate living beings, even carnivorous ones, in a fashion similar to my own manufacture."

Sighing, Dennis turned to face Tarnisha. "Hand me one of those sieves."

I watched with disgust as he took it from her, dipping it in the gold.

"You want to lose your head too?" she asked.

With seeming ease, he brought the colander back out again, heavy with the human head peering over the lip.

The layers of molten ore oozing down Bruce's forehead, ears and nose made me think of a caramel apple.

Tarnisha gawked at it in horror. "You're not seriously thinking about selling that, are you? I mean, who would buy it?"

"I know some people," Will muttered.

"Mr. Hatch's head is not for sale," Dennis snapped. "It's going to be buried with his body where it belongs."

For a moment, my respect for Dennis went up two notches, but it fell back down when he added, "Go get some small chunks of Hannanium and drop them in. We'll get some gold out of this yet."

"We should _throw_ them in," Will said. "So we can kill that thing."

"Why do I smell incense?" Tarnisha asked.

We all soon found out. Spotted Owl had returned, waving around bells and a feather fan with incense and a burning cigarette. The woman danced around in a circle, fanning smoke and incense all around as she half chanted, half sang something in Navajo.

The dance drew Gina away from the wall, breaking her out of her semi-catatonic state enough to follow her around.

"What are you doing?" Will asked. "The Chiefs chant?"

Spotted Owl stopped. "Where do you think the Chiefs got it from, asshole?"

Dennis crossed his arms. "I'd like to hear an explanation myself."

"She's the entertainment," Rick suggested.

"I'm sending away the evil spirits!" she shouted angrily.

She resumed her ritual.

"Admit it," Will said. "You're just making up those words as you go along."

"You want me to shove you into that gold?"

He raised his hands in surrender.

But then, as she attempted the rite again, he interrupted her by laughing. "Sounds like the Navajo version of _Holly Jolly Christmas_."

"You don't know what you're talking about. This ritual is very ancient. Passed down from my mother's grandmother, and her mother's mother before her."

"Leave her alone," Gina said. "Let her do her thing. It can't hurt any."

Tarnisha nodded. "If there's any place that needs an exorcism, _it's this place_."

Will smirked at Spotted Owl. "I didn't know you exorcised."

Now she was really mad. "You making a crack about my weight?"

"I think we have a communication problem," he muttered.

"Fuck you."

"Children..." Dennis scolded.

Rick pointed to the gate and statues at the far end of the tunnel. "Has anyone checked back there yet?"

Dennis waved him on. "Be my guest."

"Gold!" I heard a voice shouting.

I turned and saw Si peering greedily at the river.

"I wouldn't," I said. "Not until you see what happened to Bruce."

He stared at me with suspicion. "What...happened to Bruce?"

Si swore softly as he stared at the corpse.

"Damn." He shook his head. "How did this happen?"

"Long story," Dennis, Tarnisha and Will said in unison.

"We need to carry Mr. Hatch out for a proper burial," said Dennis.

Si frowned. "What about the gold?"

"What about it?" said Gina. "As long as that thing's down there, you're paying for the treasure with your head. We'll have to kill that son of a bitch before we can take anything out."

"Then how the fuck did you get Bruce's head back out?"

"Dennis got lucky. He's like _The One_ or something."

Si stared at the river of gold for a moment, then jerked back.

"You're not shitting! There's something down there!"

With that point firmly established, he, Dennis and Will picked up Mr. Hatch, and his head, carrying him out.

Rick, in the meantime, now stood staring at the statues at the end of the tunnel.

"They're moving!" he shouted. "Look at them!"

I hurried over, watching with unease and fascination as the statues slowly moved their paws.

Spotted Owl followed us, beating on a little drum and singing.

The statues were the strangest things I'd ever seen. Carved out of what appeared to be white marble, they stood about six feet in height, seven or eight if you counted the walls of Haddanium they sat upon.

They resembled sphinxes, but the weird king of winged sphinxes with head coverings you see in front of Masonic lodges and government buildings.

Stranger still was the fact these things had no faces to speak of, only toothy mouths.

Just like my dreams, I thought. Except they're white.

I watched as their large lion paws made gestures in a type of sign language I'd never seen, settling in a final position with one paw raised in a warning `stop' gesture while the other beckoned slyly to the door.

"It's just like those dragon statues in front of Buddhist temples," Rick said. "It warns the uninitiated to stay away while inviting others to enter. It's just a test of courage."

Smirking, he marched up to the door, examining the runes around its frame.

With shocking speed, the two statues turned their heads, distending their jaws, and a brilliant light erupted from their mouths.

Rick let out a scream as the light enveloped his body, filling the air with the smell of ozone and burning flesh.

His charred skeleton, swaddled in blackened rags of clothing, collapsed on the floor with a sickening hollow crunch.

I and my companion recoiled in horror.

"The spirits are angry that we disturb their slumber!" Spotted Owl cried. "We must not approach this grave!"

But a moment after she said this, the sphinxes stopped signing `'halt', making beckoning gestures with both paws.

Come inside, they seemed to be saying.


	10. Chapter 10: Initiate

"Your presence here honors the spirits," Spotted Owl said as she stared at the beckoning statues. "Perhaps they've witnessed your respect for their dead and their ancient dwelling."

I rolled my eyes. This wasn't the only time she indulged in superstition. Behind her back, people often called her Spot For A Brain, due to her strange behavior.

"You should probably obey them," she suggested. "Perhaps you will commune with the old gods."

"I'm not obeying a statue," I said. "Judging by what I've just seen, the moment I step over there, I'm going to be `communing with the gods' a lot faster than you think."

"I believe those are called `Seraphim,'" I heard Venn muttering beside us. "The design is vastly different from the ones in my image catalog. The substance they've been carved from is also unusual. The builders appear to have created a semifluid version of concrete melded to a biological organism, but it has mechanical elements like a machine."

"Are they alive?" I asked.

"No. They are a type of android. They seem remarkably well preserved for spending so many centuries in disuse."

Almost as an afterthought, he added, "I regret to inform you that your friend Rick Henderson is deceased."

I frowned at him in annoyance. "Gee. You think?"

Oblivious to the deadly `Seraphim', he knelt over Rick's remains, examining the bones. "Was this caused by the guardian statues?"

"No," I said. "He just started talking about being a super spy and I lit a match. Of course they caused it!"

Venn stood up, staring at the statues, and they appeared to stare back.

For a moment, the doctor's face went slack, and then he spoke to them. "I understand."

He turned around to face me. "We seek the two legged priestess who carries new life on the inside of her body. Send her forward, and take the two keys from the guardians' mouths."

His voice echoed loudly through the chamber like some ancient god.

"What's all this shit?" Gina asked, hands on her hips.

"The demon that just barbecued Rick is asking Ellen to stick her hands in its mouth," Spotted Owl said.

I stayed put. "How do I know it won't kill me?"

Instead of answering, Venn repeated, "Send the life bearing priestess forward to take two keys from the guardians' mouths."

"No," I said.

"Why is Venn talking like this?" said Gina. "Is he possessed?"

"Something like that."

The statues seemed to sense my hesitation, for they then told me, "A heart that is true will still the guardians' mouths. A double heartbeat a guardian cannot devour. But woe to that initiate whose heart weighs heavy. Even a double heartbeat will not save them from their fate."

"What are you waiting for?" I heard Si saying from behind me. "Do what the robot says!"

"Excuse me if I don't rush in and get made into crispy critters," I snapped. "I need to think."

"What's there to think about? You're the chosen one. Just grab the damn thing!" He was lurking behind me like I were a human shield. I felt like I was Dorothy on the _Wizard of Oz_, and he was the Cowardly Lion.

"I'll go when I'm good and ready!"

I stared at the strange figures in front of me. With the doctor frozen like he was, it looked like we faced three guardian statues instead of two. Everyone kept a healthy distance away from them, preferring to align themselves anywhere behind the line in the floor where I was standing.

That's it, I thought. Back to bed. If these guys want to play _Temple of Doom_, let them kill themselves in this little funhouse.

As I was turning to leave, I noticed Dennis standing in my path.

"Some time today, Ellen?"

"In case you haven't noticed," I said. "The last person that stepped up to that gate got vaporized."

"I _have_ noticed. Mr. Henderson will be missed." He said this indifferently, as if he'd been talking about the weather. "I also noticed that those things just promised to let you take the keys from their mouths without hurting you."

"As long as she doesn't have a heavy heart," Spotted Owl corrected.

"Yes." He cleared his throat. "But I don't think she'll have much of a problem with that. I'm assuming it means a heart heavy with guilt. As long as they excuse your hatred of your coworkers, and fornication..."

"If you're so perfect," I said. "Why don't you do it?"

He didn't miss a beat. "And how do you propose to make me pregnant?"

Bastard.

What could I really do? Run away? I'd need a space suit and a rocket belt to get anywhere besides a rotten urine smelling cavern full of Hell's Lice.

"Where's Brett?" I said.

"I put him in the brig," Spotted Owl said. "Remember?"

"I want him here with me."

"I'm sorry Ellen," Dennis said. "I had to send a message to the crew. You do not strike a commanding officer and get away with it."

"Then I've got a message for you," I said. "Bring him out here, and you bring him now, or I'm not doing anything."

"I thought we were past this," Dennis said. "We both know the stakes. We've established the consequences."

I pointed to the pair of smoldering bones sticking out of the remnants of Rick's boots. "What about those consequences? Rick died for just getting near those things! Call me crazy, but if I'm going to die, I'd like someone I love to actually be here with me!"

We locked eyes for a moment, Dennis puffing through his nose, giving me that bull's stare.

"There are worse things than losing my baby," I said. "This tomb is full of them."

He frowned, and then I saw an expression on his face I had never seen before. Defeat, and sullen resignation. I suspect hell had frozen over.

He uttered his next order in a low growl, like some kind of beaten dog. "Bring Mr. Vickers back here."

Spotted Owl nodded and hurried away.

"Did they ask any riddles yet?" Si asked. "Because the answer to the one about the thing that has four legs in the morning and two at noon is-"

"Nothing simple like that," I interrupted. "They're promising not to eat me while at the same time threatening to tear me limb from limb."

"Only if she has a heavy heart," said Dennis.

Si clapped his hands. "Then you've got nothing to worry about!"

I saw Will lighting up as he approached the statue on the left side, wandering up the aisle along the wall.

The statue ignored him.

"Yo, Will!" Gina called. "You got a death wish?"

"It's only guarding the door," he mumbled with a cigarette in his mouth.

He smoked a bit, carelessly shaking ashes on the statue's paws. "Just a couple of funny looking bouncers."

I watched with horror as he jabbed the burning end of his cigarette into the statue's paw.

No reaction. He relit the cigarette.

"You got some brass gajones, Will," Gina said. "And no brain."

Will just chortled between puffs.

He reached up at the statue's mouth.

The head suddenly snapped at him, teeth slamming shut mere centimeters from where his fingertips had been, had he not pulled them away at the last second.

"Holy shit!" he cried in a cross between a gasp and a chuckle.

We all laughed, mostly because he was unharmed after playing such a foolishly dangerous game. If Venn hadn't been busy playing Alien Microphone, he might have made a comparison between Will's antics and a group of chimps teasing a lion.

"I don't get it," Gina said. "Why does everything here favor pregnant women?"

"I think it was something to do with hip structures," I said. "Maybe these aliens were...big, and female looking."

"If that's the case, Rhonda down in site N47 should be a god here."

I didn't reply. Rhonda was the joke of the whole operation. More than a few times I heard people saying that they would have sent her home due to the physical fitness requirement, but every time they tried it, her incredible weight was too much for the rockets. The humor had long gone stale.

"I heard you weren't much longer for this world," a voice said. A pair of muscular brown arms wrapped around me.

"Brett," I sighed.

I turned around and faced him. "I'm about to do something dangerous. There's a good chance that once I try to grab...whatever key is in that statue, it'll kill me."

He looked confused, so I explained.

"You don't have to do this," he said with worriment.

"Dennis isn't going to leave me alone unless I do. Neither will the others. Look where we've gotten so far."

Brett glared at Dennis, then looked away.

"I'm sorry, baby."

We just silently stared at each other.

I grabbed my boyfriend, holding him close. "I just wanted to tell you, no matter what happens, I love you."

He smiled. "I always suspected you did. I suspect I love you, too."

I heard Gina making gagging sounds, but I didn't care.

I leaned in and gave Brett a kiss, a long passionate one because I was certain it would be our last.

Dennis cleared his throat.

With a sigh, I pulled away, gave Brett a little goodbye wave, and marched up to the sphinx with the cigarette ashes on its paw.

A blue jewel sparkled within the threatening mouth of the statue. I raised my hand up to the teeth, all the while thinking this was a horrible mistake.

What does it mean to be heavy hearted? I thought as I nervously watched the thing's mouth opening.

And then it hit me. Slow!

As fast as I could, I shot my hand into the maw, closing it around the blue crystal.

It was not a crystal as much as it was a device, for I soon found it had a handle, like a flashlight, attached to its back portion.

I gave it a strong tug, but I couldn't get it free! It only clicked, like I'd pulled something loose.

I screamed as the statue's teeth closed on my wrist.

My screaming stopped when I discovered it didn't hurt.

Hearing a grinding sound, and cheering, I craned my head around the side of the statue and saw the door opening.

"What?" I cried. "Then what is the other statue-"

I shut up when I saw Dennis nonchalantly reaching into the statue on the other side like he were only changing a light bulb.


	11. Chapter 11: Beer and Chicks

The statue opened its mouth, releasing me from its grip. I whipped my hand away, leaving the crystal where it was.

Dennis, however, was pocketing his in his jumpsuit.

As the gate rumbled open, the guardian statues bowed their heads submissively, gesturing us inwards.

"Someone take care of Mr. Henderson's remains," Dennis said. "Get a broom and a shovel or something. Maybe one of those small ore trays. We'll bury him next to Mr. Hatch."

We all just stared at him, none of us really wanting to do it.

"Who's to say these things won't just vaporize us when we try it?" Gina asked.

Dennis slapped his hand on the moving door, nonverbally demonstrating the safety.

Sighing, Gina turned and marched away.

Without a word, Doctor Venn turned and ducked through the opening, leaving us staring into the darkened chamber beyond with impatient expectation.

Inch by inch, more of the chamber revealed itself, a glittering maze of sparkling ceiling to floor windows that seemed to stretch into infinity.

Dennis stooped and dragged his hoverlamp through the opening, causing the walls to glow with a thousand bright dots.

After his endlessly repeating image glanced around for a few moments, and the gate opened all the way, he waved us in.

I decided I wouldn't have a better opportunity to make a hasty exit.

Before anyone figures out that I'm needed again, before we discover another deadly trap.

I pushed through the cluster of team members.

Brett hugged me. "I'm glad you weren't hurt."

"Yeah," I sighed. "Me too."

We cuddled for a moment.

"Going to bed?"

"That was the idea," I nodded. "Unless you happen to have a molecular transporter in your pocket."

He made a show of digging for one. "Sorry baby. Fresh out."

I smiled, gave him a kiss on the cheek, then hurried away.

The moment I set foot in the aisles between the rivers of gold, I heard Dennis yelling, "Ellen Ripley!"

I shuddered.

Dammit, I thought. Will this nightmare ever end?

I pretended not to hear, marching into the stables, closer to the exit. To my chagrin, I discovered that Si had already managed to saw quite a few of the golden windows out of their frames, allowing a previously contained sewage and cheese cracker smell to permeate the entire chamber.

"Hey!" I heard Si yelling after me as I quickened my pace. "Yo! Golden Child!"

I bumped into a dark haired figure clutching a broom, a tray and a dustpan.

"You heard the man," she said. "You're _The One_. Get your ass back up there."

Rolling my eyes, I walked around her.

Gina dropped her tools. "Hey! You deaf, abuelito? I was talking to you!"

I crossed my arms. "I don't see an army here, do you?"

She stared at me for a minute. "I don't need no army. I can take care of you myself."

Gina clenched her fists.

"You going to hit a pregnant woman?" I said.

"Only if you don't do what you're told," she growled.

Turning red with anger, I shouted, "Then you're no different from the rest of the lowlife sleaze that runs this base!"

"I don't give a flying fuck what you think of me, Ripley," she said. "But if you don't get your fat pregnant ass back where it's supposed to be, I swear to God I'll use that baby as my personal punching bag."

"You wouldn't dare," I said.

"Oh yeah?" she said. "Watch me."

When she swung her fist at my stomach, I dodged and hit her. When I retaliated, she hit me in the face.

"Fuck this," I said. "I'm not going to play Pregnant Heavyweight Boxing with you."

"Then get back in there and stop fucking around!"

Instead of replying, I ran out the entrance, putting my hand to the icon.

Gina tried to follow, but she froze when she saw what I was doing. "You wouldn't."

I gave her my coldest glare. "Wouldn't I?"

If Rick was right, I could just pull the damn thing out and shut them all in the tomb forever. Gina, Dennis, Si, Will, all of them. Let them have their gold and death traps.

I would have done it too, but then I remembered.

Brett.

If I shut the door on them, he'd be stuck in there too.

I called to him.

"Baby?" came the frightened sounding reply. "I think you'd better come back here!"

And then, almost as an afterthought, he added, "I'd like to keep my head on my shoulders!"

"Brett!" I cried.

Scowling angrily at Gina, I pushed past, running to his rescue.

Dennis, Will and Si had my boyfriend on his knees beside an open trough of liquid gold, tempting the creature in its depths by dangling his face right over the side.

When I got close enough to be grabbed myself, they pulled him out, pinning his arms down as he struggled.

"You haven't been dismissed," Dennis said.

Brett surrendered without a fight, and I grudgingly followed my boss into the next vault.

Spotted Owl tapped my shoulder, giving me an apologetic look. "I'm sorry. I tried."

I could see that she had. One eye was already swollen and puffy from where someone had hit her.

I shook my head sadly.

The maze I had seen from the gate had been an illusion. I instead found myself standing inside an ovoid arrangement of mirrors, windows reflecting reflections of windows reflecting more reflections to infinity. The hoverlamp floated near the far end, its brilliant light reflecting off the glass like a million suns.

"All right," I groaned as I stared at the boss. "What the hell do you want this time?"

"Such manners," he chided.

He pointed to a black obelisk with an intricate curving symbol carved into it. Doctor Venn stood behind it, waving his arms in curious fascination, as if he'd never seen his own limbs before.

With a sigh, I pressed my palm against the obelisk, hoping that nothing would happen.

The symbol glowed red, the obelisk sinking into the floor with a noisy rumble.

All around us, I could see second panes and dark indistinct shapes rising from the floor behind the mirrors that surrounded us. It seemed they were not mirrors in the truest sense of the word, but merely reflective windows.

I clutched Brett's hands as the objects rumbled higher, the obelisk appearing to serve the purpose of counterbalance, lowering to the floor in order to raise these shadowy things to our level, things that even now appeared to be moving.

"What do you think is back there?" Si asked.

"The ancient gods," Spotted Owl said. "Ancestor spirits."

Will shrugged. "I don't know. More mirrors?" he paused. "Or maybe a ninja assassin pretending to be a reflection."

Si laughed. "Space ninjas."

Will puffed the stub of a cigarette. "I saw it in a Kung Fu movie. All I'm saying is that maybe one of these mirrors isn't a mirror." He poked a nearby pane.

"You think they're going to pop out and kill us or something?"

Will tossed his cigarette butt aside. "It's not much of a stretch. Look what happened to Bruce."

My teammates all poked the walls, just to make sure. The obelisk was not so sunken in the floor that it looked like a little tombstone.

"Maybe it's like Freddy," Tarnisha said as she proved the last mirror solid. "Maybe it's like a real mirror, but he can still pop out and grab you because he's a ghost."

"Whoa!" Will blurted, pressing his hand against one of the mirrors. "They've got beer!"

I saw Si's mouth hanging open in disbelief. "What?"

"I don't believe what I'm seeing. It's real beer, and it's on ice. Pretty good shit. Colt, Budweiser, Corona, tequila..."

"Bullshit!" Si said, joining him at the glass.

He stabbed a finger at the glass. "Right over there. Next to the black chick in the lingerie."

"Now I know I'm dreaming," Si said. "A fucking bar!"

He paused. "You said there's a black chick?"

"You don't see her?"

Si shook his head. "Maybe she's hiding behind that blonde in the string bikini."

"She'd have to be pretty thin."

Out of curiosity alone, I crept up behind them, peering over their shoulders, but I saw nothing at all. Nothing but a faint wispy fog swelling inside a square enclosure.

Will apparently noticed my spying, for he turned around and smirked at me. "Want me to get you a beer?"

I scrunched up my face. "What, did you have a few already? There's nothing in there!"

He turned around, glanced at the reflection, and looked at me like _I_ were the crazy one. "You don't see it? The bar? The sexy chick in the white teddy?"

I grimaced. "No. I just see a couple delusional fools staring at fog in a mirror."

"You're just jealous," said Will. And he pressed his face against the glass.

"Yeah," I muttered. "I'm real jealous of a bimbo with Budweiser."

Si looked in with him for a moment, then frowned. "She's gone! The chick with the string bikini! She's gone!"

"She was never there," said Will. "I'm sure of it. But the black chick is definitely real."

"I still don't see her," said Si. "And now the beer's gone."

He backed away from the glass. "What is this crazy place?"

"More beer for me!" Will said.

He stared, almost drooling, for another minute, then suddenly blurted, "I think I see a way in."

What I saw next raised the hairs on my back and made my jaw drop in utter disbelief.

Without a word, Will just turned and casually stepped through a solid piece of gold-Haddanium composite like it were a beaded curtain.

"Hey!" Si cried. "Will!"

I watched as the young man reached into the fog, picking up a little tapered brown cylinder that looked more like an African drum than a beer can.

With a self satisfied laugh, he peeled open the fungus-like top, pouring an oily black sludge into his mouth like it were premium brew.

Kissing air, he accepted an invisible Cuban cigar and lit it with nothing, then stood smugly blowing smoke, beckoning to us.

"C'mon guys!" he called, his voice muffled behind the glass. "Swear to God, best damn beer I ever had."

He took a big gulp of sludge, then offered the drum in a toast, smoking air in a relaxed fashion as he took swigs of slime.

He cracked open a second drum.

"He's gone batshit," said Si.

"Oh, and _you would know_," I frowned.

"How the hell did he get in there?" Tarnisha said. "And what's that shit he's drinking?"

Will suddenly dropped the drum and clutched his throat, staggering backwards into a mirror.

Bending over, he vomited blood and bits of organ, shiny gray sperm shaped tapeworms wiggling out and dropping into the fog with the gobbets of blood.

I watched my feet, praying that those things didn't breach the glass.

"Will!" Si screamed, slamming his fist against the window.

His fist, of course, would have broken first.

With black tears pouring out his eyes, Will clutched his chest, coughing up blood as he staggered toward us.

His body slammed up against the glass as he desperately struggled to escape his little chamber of death, his hands smearing black sludge as he clawed the rigid surface.

Will spasmed, vomiting worms, blood and other disgusting things, slumping helplessly against the barrier.

In a sudden moment of remorse, he locked eyes with me, pressing his hand against the glass.

"You were right," he whispered.

He shot his friend a pleading glance.

"Si," he gurgled with a throat full of fluid. "Go home," he spat up blood. "Get out of here while you still can."

Clutching his chest, apparently in the throes of a heart attack, he slid down the mirror, disappearing into the fog.

No one ever saw him again.


	12. Chapter 12: True Desire

I checked the floor constantly, fearing the worms would come for us, but I didn't see any on the mushroom spore patterned tiles.

"This place is filled with evil spirits," said Spotted Owl. "I will bring offerings to appease them." And she hurried out.

"I don't know if we should stay here," Si said. "After what happened to Will, I think we're better off just trying to kill that thing and taking the liquid gold. I mean, if we dam that shit up with enough rocks, that thing will have no room to grab anyone. Let's just do that and leave Satan's funhouse alone."

"You may leave any time you wish, Mr. Spencer," Dennis said. "But you will forfeit any treasures found beyond this point."

This gave him pause.

"All right, everyone," Dennis shouted. "Stay away from the mirrors. We all saw what happened to Mr. Thorpe."

He turned and faced the exit, giving it a frustrated look.

After a long thoughtful pause, he gave Mr. Spencer a sideways glance, sighing in resignation. "Everyone clear out. We'll figure out what to do with this later. We've still got a river full of gold to extract."

"Do I still forfeit my treasures?" Si joked.

The expression on Dennis's face said, "Don't be a wise guy."

Gina, it would appear, had not `seen what happened to Mr. Thorpe', for I found her gazing through a looking glass on the opposite side of the chamber, her facial expression reflecting a sort of guilty pleasure.

As she stared into the empty fog, I saw her pointing to herself in surprise, as if to say, "Who, me?" to nobody.

When she noticed me watching, she gave me a sheepish grin, and I thought I saw her blushing.

"Oh my gosh!" she said in a conspiratorial whisper. "That girl in there, she's taking it all off!"

She returned her stare to the fog. "She is _so_ hot!"

I, of course, saw nothing.

I vaguely remembered Gina muttering something about a potty break a few minutes before Will died, so I guess she missed the whole subtext about the mirrors being full of deadly slime.

Dennis slapped a heavy hand on her shoulder.

"Gina, listen to me. I know you're lonely, but what you're seeing in there isn't real."

Gina pushed his hand away. "She looks pretty real to me! Look at her! She's a fucking goddess! As soon as I can get past this window, we're going to give that chair of hers some serious exercise!"

Dennis gripped her shoulders with both hands, spinning her around.

"Gina. Listen to me."

When she cast a longing glance to her side, he slapped her.

"Gina. Look me in the eyes." She did. "Nothing in these mirrors are real. Think about it. This vault hasn't been opened for centuries. How could a woman get in there and still be alive?"

She sighed. "She found a back entrance. Or maybe she's a sexy alien."

"Yeah," Brett muttered. "Like that sexy alien that ripped Bruce's head off."

Ignoring him, Dennis said, "Gina, even if that were the case, why are you the only one who can see her?"

Gina pointed to me. "You saw her, didn't you?"

"No," I frowned. "Just a bunch of fog."

She glanced hopefully at Si.

"Oh yeah," he said. "She was fingering her tits and everything." And then he burst out laughing. "I didn't see shit."

It seemed Gina's delusions were not easily dispelled. "Yeah?" she said. "Well maybe she's a shape changing invisible alien who wants to have some fun."

Dennis locked eyes with her. "Gina. We just lost a team member who as absolutely convinced he saw ice cold beer and a woman. This is a tomb on an alien planet. There's no reason why beer or ice would exist here, and yet he was so convinced it was real that he stepped through that glass and something in there killed him."

"The asshole drank the blue Kool-Aid," Si agreed, looking like he were about to cry. "Poor bastard."

"That's ridiculous," Gina said. "That only proves he's an idiot."

"How is that different from you and your imaginary lesbian girlfriend?"

"She's not-" She looked away.

"Gina," he said. "I'm telling you this for your own good. We've already lost three good crew members and I don't want to lose a fourth."

She bowed her head, looking both ashamed and confused. Dennis sighed.

"Gina, I need you functioning at the peak of your capabilities." He pointed at the gate. "Go back to crew quarters. Take a rest."

When she didn't move, he added, "That's an order, Ms. Mendoza."

The expression on Gina's face was one of fear and intense hatred, but she obeyed, slowly marching out.

"It isn't real," I thought I heard Dennis whispering to himself when he glanced at a window. "She died ten years ago."

He quickly looked away.

That's when I noticed Tarnisha stepping through one of the mirrors. The last thing I heard her saying was, "My daughter."

"Tarnisha!" Dennis shouted, running over there, but it was too late.

"She's gone," he said.

Dr. Venn stepped into the center of the chamber, speaking in the booming god voice again.

"Let the wise understand: The path of true desire will lead to God, but woe to those who choose another. They shall reap their own destruction."

This statement gave us pause.

"True desire," Dennis muttered, staring at the mirror Gina had been so fascinated by. "Logically, they cannot occupy the same place as the false..."

The boss touched my arm. "Ellen, I know this is dangerous, but I want you to examine each of these mirrors and tell me what you see."

"Now wait a damn minute!" Brett shouted.

Dennis gave him a cold look that immediately silenced him.

I swallowed. "Seriously?"

"Yes, seriously," Dennis said.

"You're basically asking me to bare all my subconscious desires to you. Forgive me if I find that fucking unreasonable."

His hands clamped around my shoulders. "Ellen, there's a safe way through this, and I have absolute certainty that you're the key to all this. All I'm asking for is open communication."

"Fuck you," I said. "You're not my shrink."

He frowned and shook his head. "Look, Ellen. I...I don't care if you...censor it somewhat, but I want word pictures. Can you at least give me that?"

"Fine," I sighed, though I shuddered at the thought of the task ahead of me.

Whatever I saw, I resolved, I wouldn't linger in front of.

Two mirrors next to the entrance showed nothing at all, no matter how long I stared at them, and I told Dennis as much.

"Keep going," he said.

The next one held clothing.

Stylish, comfortable stuff, designed for my body size. I would be a queen in those outfits. I would kill for the chance to take even one of them back to crew quarters. There were so many shoes...no more foot pain. It would actually fit.

"Clothes," I said, walking on.

The next one held a mountain of gold ore and other precious stones. Some very nice trinkets that didn't look cursed, items that would help I and Brett buy a new house for us and the baby.

"Gold."

The next one held a gun on a metal stand.

How great a game changer that would be. I wouldn't have to be here, obeying Goedicke's every whim. I could go back to bed, and if he got in the way, I'd kill him.

So tempting.

"Ellen?" Dennis called.

I didn't answer.

Brett wrapped his arms around me. "Remember, baby. It's not real."

I nodded. And then, to answer Dennis, I shouted, "It's a gun."

I suddenly noticed Spotted Owl lighting a cone of incense in front of one of the mirrors. She had on a wrinkled buckskin robe that I'd never seen before. I guessed she had it in mothballs all this time.

"Ancient spirits of this place, we beg your forgiveness for our intrusion into your sacred dwelling."

I rolled my eyes and kept going.

In the next mirror, I saw a reflection of Brett and myself kissing, tearing our clothes off, until we stood naked, oblivious to the boss and other people, and we walked hand in hand through a mirror containing a strange looking narrow bed with a curving canopy that made it look like a crescent moon. I could feel my legs beginning to tremble in anticipation.

Dennis snapped me out of it. "Ellen?"

"It's, uh, _love_."

"That's it!" he cried. "Go through that one!"

I didn't move. "I don't know."

He pushed Brett out of the way, giving me a shove.

I whirled around, glaring at him. "All right, all right! It's _making_ love!" I swallowed. "And I wasn't pregnant."

Dennis suddenly pulled me back, away from the glass. He locked eyes with me. "Didn't I say we had to keep communication open?" He held up a pair of clenched fingers. "You were _this close_ to death!"

"And _didn't I_ say you weren't my fucking shrink?"

But then I swallowed. "I'll try to make better word pictures."

Behind me, Spotted Owl was flinging a vial of blood on one of the mirrors.

"Ancient spirits, accept this blood sacrifice in respect to your most sacred dwelling. Preserve our lives, for we are but lowly mortals."

The next picture showed Dennis in some sort of alien torture device, unable to move. A simple looking console stood ready, inviting me to act.

Swallowing, I muttered, "Revenge."

Spotted Owl, in the meantime, was offering the third mirror a handful of corn meal as a sacrifice.

The next one over showed Dennis lying on the floor, dead, apparently from a heart attack.

"A corpse," I said.

"Let me guess," Dennis muttered. "It's mine, isn't it?"

I didn't reply, fighting down a smirk as I heard Spotted Owl leaving the next mirror an offering of ten dollars and forty seven cents.

"Is that ritual helping at all?" I called to her.

She faced me and nodded. "I just saw my father, and he thanked me for the grain."

Both Dennis and I stared at her, both of us seeming to be thinking the same thing.

"Spotted Owl," Dennis said. "Did you desire anything from your father, or anything else from what you've seen in these mirrors?"

"No sir," she said. "I have only desired to please the spirits here. If they have treasure, it is theirs. It does not belong to me."

Dennis rubbed his chin. After a thoughtful pause, he gestured for me to continue.

I expected the next mirror to show me some defense lawyers or sending Dennis before a jury or something, but instead I saw Troy, my ex boyfriend.

The last time I checked, Troy was on earth, and was sleeping with some bimbo who worked at a tattoo parlor.

But there he stood, smiling at me, looking sexy as ever.

Firm, muscular chest and arms framed in a designer t-shirt. Shorts showing off his well toned calves and thighs.

He stood in a narrow hallway in his condo, and I could almost swear I could smell his trademark crepes cooking in the kitchen nearby.

His Celtic tattoos were gone. As much as I missed him, that was the part that broke the spell.

"Ellen?" the voice said behind me.

"A man from my past," I said, moving on.

Brett looked horrified, angry even. "Baby, is there something you want to tell me?"

I gave him an apologetic smile. "It's ancient history. Don't worry about it."

I didn't want to tell him that I still frequently thought about how Troy's hands electrified my body, how he took me places with those hands, another things, that Brett, well...

"He's long gone," I said.

Past that mirror, I found a window displaying (ironically enough) a rocket belt, a chef cooking barbecue, my dead grandmother, now alive and well, and my cousin Robert, who had accidentally shot himself in the head while playing with a rifle a few years ago, also now alive and well.

While I briefly considered the notion that being reunited with my lost loved ones would be a `true desire', I considered the idea both selfish and creepy. Dennis, to my great relief, agreed.

A little boy waved at me from the next mirror.

Just looking at him told me he was mine.

The caramel colored skin.

My angular face and cheekbones.

Head of curly black hair like the one Brett always shaved off.

The eyes.

I knelt before the glass, tears streaming down my cheeks.

"You're my son, aren't you?" I cried.

He nodded.

I chuckled softly. "You're beautiful."

The boy wordlessly pushed the mirror aside as easily as if it were the sliding glass door on a house.

He came forward and hugged me.

"I'm going to take you away from here," I whispered. "I'm going to bring you home, back to earth. Just you, me and Brett. We might not end up with much money, but we'll be a family. We'll take care of you, no matter what."

"I don't believe what I'm seeing," Dennis said. "Is anyone else seeing this?"

"I sure am," Brett said. "And if he's what I think he is..."

He scooped the boy in his arms.

"I'll be damned," said Si. "What the fuck is a little boy doing down here?"

I glanced at Dr. Venn, but he was still in puppet mode.

"I don't know," I said. "I guess he's a projection about my wishes for the baby, or he's a projection of my baby's consciousness. Either way, he's beautiful."

"True desire," Dennis muttered. "Ask him if there's a way past this room, or if there's a treasure vault in here somewhere."

"Honey," I said, stroking the boy's head. "Where did you come from?"

The boy pointed at my swollen belly, making me laugh. He definitely had Brett's genes.

"All right, wise guy. Tell me this. Is there a room beyond this one?"

He silently nodded, pointing to the open mirror.

"If we go in there, will we die?"

He shook his head, then wiped his nose.

"The kid just popped out of a mirror," Si muttered. "Why should we believe anything that comes out of that little creep's mouth?"

No one had an answer to that. I myself was only going by motherly instinct.

"If we go in there," I said. "Will we be able to leave again?"

He nodded.

"Okay," I said. "I really shouldn't trust you, but, caring for you, being a parent...that's the truest desire I have. You have to give me credit for that."

"You will not be harmed, Ellen Ripley," the boy said in a cold alien voice. A chill ran down my back.

"Lead the way," I said.

Brett set the boy down, and we cautiously trailed him into the room beyond the mirror.


	13. Chapter 13: Throne Room

The child led us to the rear of the foggy claustrophobic little box, sliding open another window.

Behind this, we came to a dimly lit tunnel running parallel to the opening. A wall lay directly ahead.

I checked my boots and pant cuffs for worms, but saw none.

When I saw the slight brown faced figure with the cornrowed head, I nearly screamed, especially when I noticed the little girl accompanying her.

"Tarnisha!" I cried. "I thought you were-"

She shook her head. "I guess I got lucky."

She frowned at the girl. "This isn't my baby, you know. She just looks it."

A snake tongue rapidly popped out of the child's mouth, twitching around and sliding back, the process repeating every couple seconds like a true reptile.

She didn't blink, really. A pair of nictating eyelids dropped down every minute or so, which wasn't quite the same.

My son was doing something similar, and when he rested his head of Brett's chest, I could see gills expanding and closing on the boy's neck.

He pointed to a bend in the tunnel to the right. "We should go that way."

I could see snake fangs when he talked.

"Okay," I stammered. "As long as it's safe."

He responded by snuggling himself more comfortably in Brett's arms.

"Mommy, I'm tired," said Tarnisha's daughter. And so she picked her up, allowing her to ride piggy back.

Dennis, Doctor Venn, and what remained of the team followed behind, trailing us down the tunnel as we wound our way down another bend, which straightened and broadened out as we hit the next section of tunnel.

The passage ended in what I could only describe as a `throne room,' a large square chamber lined with ornate pillars, gold statues, and gorgeous silk hangings that seemed oddly untouched by the damaging effects of time. Gold torch stands flamed to life as we entered.

"Holy shit!" Si was saying behind me. "Pay dirt!"

In the center of this regal display of wealth and power, I saw a `throne' of sorts, flanked by white marble guardian statues, each bearing strange ax-like weapons. They looked like men, but taller, and they had no faces.

The throne itself was even stranger, for it wasn't designed as a seat, but rather a bench, with a design reminding me of pictures of the Ark of the Covenant, and on this bench there sat an enormous gray egg.

Two large walls framed this bench, each with a sort of gutter ending at the egg's front, and there was a long shelf in front of the egg, similarly guttered, ending in a shallow bowl.

I stepped back and suddenly noticed the decorative stonework behind this thing had been carved into a massive head, one resembling those sphinxes we'd seen outside.

As I stood gaping at this impressive set of artifacts, the faceless guards simultaneously dropped to their knees, bowing before me.

"Oh my God, what the hell am I holding!" I heard Brett shouting.

"It's an alien," I said, spinning around. "I thought with a tongue like that..."

I couldn't finish. "Oh God."

Instead of a little boy, Brett was clutching a bog mummy. He looked like he wanted to hurl it to the ground, but his parenting instinct, defying logic, wouldn't let go, so he instead set the thing gently on the floor.

Spotted Owl knelt in front of it, touching it with her feather fan and waving smoke around. "May the spirits grant you safe passage into the next life."

When Tarnisha noticed her baby bog mummy, she screamed.

Doctor Venn marched behind the egg, raising his hands like a priest blessing a sacrament. "The Chosen One will bring her offspring forward and place it before our God as an offering."

"In other words," Si chuckled. "For refunds on condoms, insert baby."

I glared at him.

"Someone's got a mummified brain," Brett said. "She hasn't even come to term yet."

Then, noting my uneasy glance, he added, "Assuming we were that crazy."

As if in response to Brett's objection, Venn continued. "The Offering Bearer shall rest at the appointed place until the offspring is ripe."

He gestured to the right side of the room, where I could see a couch, a cluster of stone chests, and a door.

"I think we should do what it says," Dennis muttered.

"Frankly," I said. "That's a fucking idiotic idea. First of all, I'm not going to sacrifice my baby. Secondly, there's nothing to eat, no water, and nowhere to bathe."

"A god who asks for a child to be slaughtered is not to be trusted," Spotted Owl agreed.

Venn pointed a pair of blessing fingers at the couch. "Gifts of sustenance and comfort have been provided for your stay."

"Yum," Si joked. "Thousand year old food!"

Hearing a creaking sound, I turned and saw the chests opening.

I marched over there, more out of curiosity than anything else.

One of the chests was full of something that looked like unwrapped orange candy bars. They had a strong cinnamon odor, but I would have rather died than eat one.

Another chest held robes. They were pretty, like the wall hangings. I didn't mind _those_ as much, but I feared they might hide deadly alien parasites.

There was also a new addition, or maybe something so plain that I just didn't notice it. A pair of baptismal fonts, or something resembling one, but taller. One was full of something like blue Powerade, the other water. I refused to touch that, too. Not after what happened to Will.

I saw blankets and pillows in a third chest, though I wasn't too wild about sleeping there, either.

The door slid open, and I could see a waterfall draining down into a pool. Tempting, but I knew it probably had a school of piranha inside.

With my hands on my hips, I gave Dennis a weary sigh. "We've found everything there is to find," I said. "Can I go now?"

"I'm not sure I agree," he said, then he searched the chests, the walls, anything that might lead to treasure.

Si walked up to the egg, looking it over.

"So this is a `god.'"

He knocked on its side, rubbing his hand across its shell.

"This is some stupid shit. Who in their right mind worships a fucking egg?"

A black insect-like claw burst from the shell, wrapping its talons around Si's throat.

For a split second, I saw a dark shape emerge, and a second claw joined the first, pulling him into the egg.

Si screamed as the thing sliced him open like a beef carcass, ripping out his internal organs until he collapsed bleeding in the sacrificial gutters.


	14. Chapter 14: The Cult

The creature, for the time being, seemed to be too busily occupied with devouring Si to pay us any attention, but I wasn't about to wait around for it to get interested.

"Strategic re-consolidation of forces!" Dennis barked. "Everyone get out!"

We crept away from the thing warily, eyes fixed on it like we were sneaking around a mountain lion.

When he noticed us not moving fast enough, he cried, "If you value your life, get out, and get out now!"

I wasted no time fleeing the chamber, dashing down the corridor to the sliding mirror.

Dennis shoved us out of the way, pushing the mirror open, bolting to the interior one, apparently ignoring any thoughts about mummy children, worms or Chosen Ones.

He was unharmed, and soon had the interior mirror open, bolting through the entry gate, where he waited impatiently for us to get out.

Soon we were all assembled. Me, Brett, Spotted Owl, Gina, Tarnisha and Bosshole.

Seeing us all present and accounted for, he pulled out the blue gem, reaching into the mouth of the guardian statue it belonged to.

"What are you doing?" I said.

He made motions like he were screwing the gem back in. "What does it look like? That thing needs to stay there until it can be safely neutralized."

"What about Doctor Venn?" I said.

"Doctor Venn is a machine. I seriously doubt that thing will find him edible."

He pulled his hand back out, and the statue sat up on its haunches, making a swallowing motion.

On the other statue, he just reached in and twisted something.

An angry grinding noise told me that it worked. The door slowly lowered.

I sighed. "So what happens if my water breaks and I need a doctor?"

"Ellen," Dennis said as he stared at the gate. "Have you ever been to a wildlife preserve?"

"What?" I said. "No."

Dennis make a tsk sound. "A pity."

He cleared his throat. "As a child, I went to one, and a lion tried to chew our tires. He didn't like the taste."

"What happened to the tire?" I asked.

He didn't reply.

The gate was near the floor when I saw the chunky arms and legs of the good doctor sliding out with surprising speed.

"Remind me to never do the limbo with him," Gina muttered.

I smirked. With all this death around me, it was good to be amused by something, anything.

The android rose to his feet, brushing himself off. "My programming appears to have experienced an abnormality."

I rolled my eyes. "That's one way to describe it."

* * *

><p>"With the assistance of Extraction Technician 91781 Ellen Ripley, we were able to open a burial vault, nicknamed `Rey Del Muerte' by crew, containing two reservoirs of liquified gold, as well as several panes of hybridized gold-silicate `glass'. We discovered other valuables further in, but toxic gas and cave-ins have prevented us from retrieving them."<p>

_- Dennis Goedicke, Mining Supervisor_

_Message to the Ophir Initiative_

* * *

><p>Ages passed since I once again detected the presence of large meat.<p>

The first foolhardy creature I devoured the moment it touched my cocoon. It had gills and fins, and the body structure was unusually wide hipped. I consumed every piece, then lay in wait for the next one to arrive.

Slowly regaining my strength, I ate three more of these creatures, and rested.

Hunters came, attempting to destroy me, but they were of the same species as the others, with tender meat.

At some point, gorged on my victims, I lay dull and stupid in my cocoon.

When I at last stirred and regained my senses, I discovered the creatures had placed an offering of one of their horse things before me. It was unalive, but I wasn't choosey. After all, I'd been starving for a millenia.

This pattern of gifts persisted for several days.

While I fed, strange fin bearing creatures in blue silken robes bowed before me, waving around smelly burning things, chanting things I didn't understand.

As I rested, bloated from the meat, a group of them rolled me onto a length of fabric stretched across two poles, and I was carried into a large square structure and laid upon an altar, surrounded by shiny gold things.

Still resting, I listened as these `priests' argued with one another endlessly, one saying I was a god, the other saying I wasn't.

One priest stabbed the other, and his body was stripped and laid before me.

That was when the building began.

Great stoneworks that were said to resemble me.

Large bastardized versions of my son made of a large moving stone material.

The feedings continued.

One can only sit in a dark gray room so long without getting restless, even when you're getting fed every day. Besides, I had _other needs_ they were not aware of.

_The lust_ was returning.

Much to the horror of my worshipers, I left my throne, wandering outside.

I raced through the forests, strode boldly through primitive villages, preying on the young, the old, the fat, then thin. My victims looked promising, but their bodies rejected my eggs. The young came out sickly and emaciated, dying hours after birth.

I made numerous attempts, but my heart was broken.

The natives lured me back to the throne with songs, and clusters of young victims clad in colorful robes. They were let loose around this `temple', instructed to run convincingly to appease the god.

This entertained me enough to draw me in, making me forget my heartbreak, and soon I lay bloated on the throne again.

This was when I noticed the gates.

They built strange structures, like the chamber of mirrors, and I found I wasn't able to move around freely as I once was.

Still, the offerings continued, robed wide eyed males and females that presented differing offerings of incense and meat, attempting communication until they realized I only desired the meat of their bodies.

They thought they had me figured out. Special costumes were devised, elaborate rituals, special body decoration, all based on the traits of those who survived, but none of them had any real significance.

They weren't blessed by any god.

The survivors just happened to be good at hiding.

They weren't protected by their charms and feathers and talismans.

They were protected by me not being hungry.

Their mystical worship of pregnancy stems from me being squeamish.

It was the first time I had ever tried to eat a pregnant female. Imagine tearing into a meal and finding a smaller creature squirming around inside that creature.

The visual, at first, disgusted me so bad I nearly vomited.

It took a great deal of effort for me to acquire a taste for them, but I eventually did, learning to enjoy it like caviar.

But the superstition remains to this day.

When the riots struck, I got livelier prey. Some attempted to kill me, which added the thrill of danger to the otherwise dull sport.

The survivors, of course, spurned a new formulation of the religion built up around me, and gnome-like priests, only previously glanced at the rear of the clusters of sacrificial victims, were thrown to me as prey.

Following this came a lean period, as the new regime disapproved of sacrifices. A pair of priests brought in blood offerings, but I ate them instead.

Disease struck. A rotting plague that liquified internal organs and filled them with worms, rendering my victims inedible. These were sent to me, perhaps, with the thought of killing the god.

I began to distrust these fat wide hipped creatures.

Since I now had no way of escaping my chamber, I again retreated into my cocoon, awaiting that time when the disease passed and I could feed again, possibly even reproduce.

The immense tremblings of the ground, and the silence that followed, spoke of wars and death, and the strangle hold of plague.

I slept for centuries.

So sound was my slumber that I didn't notice that time had passed until I heard a sharp knock on my cocoon, and heard the coarse voice loudly saying "Hoodayffukuorsipsneg."

I feed once more.


	15. Chapter 15: Orange Bars

The base didn't have a weapons locker, per se. We only had a gray concrete store room, filled with mining tools, machine parts, and computer equipment.

We glanced at our surroundings, watching as Dennis rummaged through cargo containers, pulling out various sharp looking objects. Not much remained of our original crew.

Gina sat in a swivel chair, picking pieces off of one of the armrests. Brett stood by my side, arms crossed, glaring impatiently at the boss. Tarnisha was turning a gold sieve over in her hands, attempting to open the holes with an awl. It didn't work.

Spotted Owl had returned to quarters, obviously overwhelmed by the day's ordeal.

Tarnisha tossed the awl aside. The colander was beyond repair. "Dennis, are we going to have a funeral for Rick and the others?"

"Not yet," came the reply. "Until that creature is neutralized, there's no point. We'll only end up burying more by the time this is over."

"Seriously?"

Dennis put one hand on his hip. "Ms. Jenkins, if you want to put together a small memorial service in honor of our fallen comrades, no one's stopping you. But if it were me, I'd wait until I knew for certain that we wouldn't have any more deaths."

"Gee," I said. "You're a real humanitarian."

Dennis didn't respond.

Brett smirked. "Let me guess. In your last job, you were..._an insurance agent_."

"What I did for a career prior to this is of little importance, Mr. Vickers. Right now I am the commanding officer on this operation, and that's all you need to know."

The room fell silent save for the sounds of people digging in containers.

"Do we have any rifles?" Gina asked. "Machine guns?"

Dennis shook his head, unlocking a cabinet with a palmprint scanner. "This is a mining operation, Ms. Martinez, not a military outpost. The majority of the planets we encounter are devoid of life. That's why weaponry has never been a concern when sending rovers to Mars or other planets."

"That's pretty well self explanatory," said a bulky plump faced figure as he rummaged through a container full of wires, circuitry boxes and gears. "Basic economics. This isn't _Star Wars_."

That was Wes Gordon, our electronics wizard. With his face and long black hair the way it looked, he would have made a good extra for a Rob Zombie film, maybe something about serial killers. "The thing I don't get is why we couldn't requisition at least one weapon to be added in one of our supply shipments. It can't weigh any more than that vacuum cleaner we ordered last year, or that inoperative grandfather clock."

"A crewmember with a gun is ten times more threatening than an alien lifeform," Dennis said as he stared into the cabinet. "On planets where there isn't any life, shooting other crewmembers is the only thing you can do with one."

"What about target practice?"

"What's the point of that? There's nothing to shoot. You can't murder anyone with a clock."

Wes chuckled. "Actually, there are several ways to murder someone with a clock."

Dennis turned around, frowning at Wes with annoyance. "What I mean is, it's not as easy as a gun."

Our tech guru shook his head and grinned. "Clocks don't kill people, people kill people."

"How are the cooks killing Hell's Lice if we don't have any guns?" Gina asked.

Dennis pulled out a pole with a claw at one end, demonstrating how it opened and closed. A button click caused a blue spark to dance from the ends.

"They clamp that thing on the lice, and then they stab it to death with a knife," said Wes. "Not the most effective method in the world, (excuse me) _in the universe_."

"It doesn't require bullets," Dennis said. "Which is not only safe but economical."

"As long as the thing you're trying to kill will stand still long enough for you to shock it," Brett said.

Dennis pulled out another tool, a rifle like device with framing and coloration like a Nerf toy. "Shock rifles. Shoots an electrified dart into the animal."

"Those are great," Wes said. "Or rather they would be great if you could actually increase the voltage, or if we had more than ten rounds."

Dennis handed the rifle to Gina, who set about testing the trigger and pump action loading mechanism. It was empty, of course.

"Twenty five rifles and only ten rounds." Wes rolled his eyes. "You know, I actually ordered ten additional rounds to be shipped here. Guess what they sent me instead. No really. Go on. Guess." He laughed derisively, shaking his head. "So then I ordered ten more rounds. What did they send me? More rifles! Thank God I didn't order a hundred!"

"What do you suggest, Mr. Gordon?" Dennis asked with a frown.

Wes shrugged. "Give me your permission to quote-unquote `_deface company property_,' and I'll have something ready in twenty four hours."

Dennis looked skeptical. "What did you have in mind."

"Remember that scene from _Pirates of the Caribbean_ where they shot silverware and clothesline out of the cannons?"

We all stared at him in bafflement, causing him to chuckle.

"It's the ultimate classic old movie, and nobody watches it!" He shook his head and sighed. "Give me twenty four hours and I'll cook something up that will make your space monster wish it had never been born." He paused. "On a related subject, I'm going to need a few gallons of your rock dissolver, some batteries and a couple cigarette lighters."

Dennis nodded. "You get to work. I'll assemble a team. The rest of you are dismissed."

He patted me on the back. "Excellent work today, Ellen. I'm putting you under consideration for a class upgrade."

He put a hand on my shoulder. "Now get some rest. You deserve it."

The funny thing is, I actually valued the rest more than the promised pay increase.

I returned to my quarters and climbed into bed.

"Ain't that some fucked up bullshit?" Brett said as he joined me under the covers. "Four people in one day. All so Dennis can explore Satan's little torture chamber."

"I know," I said. "We can't even give these people a decent funeral. Webster's needs to come up with a word stronger than `asshole' to describe people like him."

He nodded. "Yeah. I'm not even sure `bastard' fits the bill." He rubbed his bruised face. "I can sure say one thing for him, though. The dude throws a mean punch. It's like he's been practicing."

"I don't see how he would find the time!"

"Me neither. But it makes you wonder. I guess if you don't have any friends..."

And then the trauma and the weight of all those deaths overwhelmed me, and I was crying into Brett's chest.

I know those men were dicks, but they had their moments, and now they were gone forever. No more rowdy joking to liven up the common room. They were all gone.

Brett rubbed my back, wrapping his arms around me as he muttered, "There there, baby."

I drifted off to sleep.

My eyes flew open, and I found myself staring up at a stone ceiling, and walls bedecked with silken hangings.

I looked down to discover myself sprawled on the couch in the alien throne room, dressed in a blue robe sprinkled with orange crumbs.

I sat up with a start, and when I did, a crown tumbled from my head, landing on a pillow.

I brushed crumbs from around my mouth.

Hearing a tinkling sound, I looked under the couch and found a goblet with a dab of blue liquid in the bottom. The absence of puddles indicated it may have been swallowed rather than spilled.

I picked it up to examine it, then dropped it again.

Any minute now, the worms or whatever would be liquifying my internal organs. I was sure of it.

Trembling, I rose to my feet. The bare stones felt odd to my bare skin. I guess, if I weren't deceiving myself, the word I would have used was `good,' as was the cinnamony flavor in my mouth, and the metallic citrus tang of the blue substance.

I shakily stumbled over to the throne where Si had met his demise.

The gutters were now dry as a bone, and an orange candy bar lay in the basin, immersed in blue liquid.

I don't know why I did it, but I picked the bar up, taking a nibble.

The snack, saturated in the refreshing substance, tasted delicious, like spice cake dipped in raspberries.

Realizing what I had just done, I quickly dropped it, hoping I wouldn't be sick. God knows how many I had already eaten.

I had to get out of there. I just had to.

I didn't see my boots anywhere, so I decided I would have to brave the worms barefooted.

I hurried back down the hallway to the mirror, hoping I wouldn't need the bog mummy to get out.

My face looked strange in the reflection, my eyes a solid black in black color.

Thinking it a trick of the mirrors, I slid the glass open, hurrying to the opposite end of the box. That mirror came open as well.

When I returned to the middle chamber, I saw movement, and as much as I tried to ignore the strange images in the reflections, I couldn't help but notice they all contained kneeling figures.

All kneeling to me, like some kind of queen or emperor.

Why were they kneeling? I had no desire to be worshiped!

The exit, of course, was closed, an impenetrable Haddanium wall standing in between me and freedom.

I searched around the stonework, but saw no way to open it.

I was trapped.

Dennis, I thought. The boss man had replaced the jewels, sealing me in forever.

Damn you, Dennis.

"No!" I cried, beating on the door.

My voice raised to a scream as I slammed my fists against it, over and over, until they were bruised and bloody. "No no no no no!"

I slid to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably as I curled into a fetal ball.

"No..."

That was when I noticed my son pointing to a stone torch.

A closer examination showed me it wasn't a torch at all, but a mechanical lever.

I sat up in my bed, drenched in sweat.

I wasn't in the tomb at all. I was still in crew quarters.

It was all a dream!

Brett was gone, probably off to...

"No!" I cried, jumping to the floor.

For a moment, I thought that maybe they would have a need for me, and not do a foolish thing like going back into the chamber with stun guns without my aid, but then I remembered how Dennis unscrewed the gem from the statue, and how Si had scratched an arrow into the Haddanium next to the correct mirror a few minutes before his death in the throne room.

"No," I moaned.

Well, I thought. It's not exactly my fault. And I don't have to be there.

I frowned as I noticed something lumpy under my feet.

Moving my left aside, I looked down and saw something I wished I hadn't seen.

It was one of those orange bars, and a bite had been taken out of it.

I shuddered, throwing it against a wall with a scream.

What was that thing doing in my room? Who put it there? Did I actually eat it? And if I didn't eat it, who did?

Composing myself, I decided to take a shower and wash this nightmare off of me. Maybe my brain would start working and I'd find out some answers. One thing's for certain, it was better than going down to that vault.

Anything was better than _that_.

When I looked at my reflection in the mirror, a pair of shiny black irises and corneas stared back at me.

I pulled my lower eyelids down and found the coloration uniform.

What is wrong with me? I thought.

But after I blinked a few times, the strange coloration was gone.

I had to be dreaming, I thought. I've heard of people sleepwalking and dreaming standing up. That has to be what happened.

I splashed water on my face and undressed.

The moment I opened the shower, I heard someone screaming.


	16. Chapter 16: Battle

It wasn't the type of scream a person would make when doused with icy water, or finding a spider crawling up their pant leg. It was the agonized scream of someone dying. Female, by the sounds of them. The noise was followed by cries of horror, confused yelling, and Dennis barking orders.

I wasn't sure if I should hide or investigate.

Surely, no good would come from me getting close to the source of the disturbance, but I couldn't say with absolute certainty that I'd be any safer where I was. What good would it be to hide under my bed like a scared child if..._whatever it was_, smelled me anyway?

I was only assuming that the thing from the egg in the throne room had escaped. On account of a dream.

I didn't have the robe.

My eyes looked normal.

I really had no proof that anything in the dream had taken place except that orange bar, and I might have put that in my pocket for one of our scientists to look at, and forgotten about it. Unwise, yes, but I could have done it. It wasn't like I intended to eat it.

While awake, anyways.

You can argue a person wouldn't forget a thing like that, but I've locked my keys in vehicles more times than I can count, and accidentally took two days of medication in one setting before, so it's not entirely improbable.

Unless someone put it there.

Either way, it proved nothing.

They could be screaming about the thing under the gold river. After all, they did intend to bury it in rocks. Maybe it got out.

I got dressed and hurried out of crew quarters, checking the hallway beyond.

Our base consists mostly of naturally occurring caverns, caverns formed by explosive charges, and a type of concrete construction teams made from minerals found on site. For this reason, the hallway ceiling has a vaulted look to it, and has a grating beneath it to capture falling stalactites.

Crew quarters faced the medical bay and the science department. I saw Tarnisha running out of the former with a bag full of medical supplies. She was heading right, in the direction of the vehicle bays and mineral extraction equipment.

The hallway was otherwise deserted. It seemed that everyone in the base had congregated at the far end, shouting and waving around rocks, pieces of metal, any weapon they could get their hands on.

To the left and down the corridor parallel to the cafeteria lay the evacuation pods. I was tempted to use them.

The trouble was, they weren't designed to support pregnant people, and you'd end up floating, cryogenically frozen, above the planet for months before anyone responds to your distress beacon. That is, if it doesn't lose its pathetically low orbit and crash back on the rocks while you waited.

We used to have a transport ship, but it was already a million light years across space, transporting tenured crew people back home.

I turned right, cautiously creeping towards the source of the noise.

It was a mob. It reminded me of the informal boxing match Si and Robert from Team A17 pulled a month ago. Elbow to elbow with people shouting for attacks, and cheering...though in this case I mostly heard swearing.

I pushed past a skinny black twenty year old and an older man with Japanese style tattoos running up and down his arms, tripping over the corpse of a fat Mongolian man with a ragged bloody chest wound in the process.

A brown hand braced me before I fell.

"Careful, señorita!" a voice yelled over the din. "It is mucho dangerous!"

Jorge. I could recognize that voice anywhere.

The little Mexican had a makeshift spear fashioned out of a lockblade knife and a piece of rebar carefully braced against his armpit as he helped me regain my balance.

A cluster of people scattered backwards as a dark shape cut through the mob, snarling and clawing like a caged tiger. Whatever that thing was, it didn't look gold.

In my absence, Wes had modified the toy-like stun rifles with nasty looking attachments. The black beast fairly bristled with glistening kitchen implements, steak knives, forks, and chunks of rebar.

Apparently they had only succeeded in pissing it off.

A couple men stepped in the breach, firing their stunners.

"Why can't we use explosives?" I heard Tarnisha yelling.

"We'll bring the roof down on top of us!" Dennis yelled back. "We'll compromise the whole operation!"

"News flash, asshole! It's already done been compromised!"

The creature roared, and someone screamed in pain. I couldn't see what had happened, but it sounded bad.

"Get some milk or bleach over here!" Dennis shouted. "It acts as a base to counteract the acid!"

"Acid?" I repeated in bafflement.

"Sí," Jorge said. "Este bestia negra..." He pointed at the snarling creature. "It spit saliva caliente del fuego. You should go, señorita. It is not safe."

The air was thick with ozone from the taser-like devices the crew kept firing, but the beast appeared to be impervious to such attacks.

"They say it come out of a small egg," Jorge breathed. "But I do not believe it. It is bigger than puma from Brasil!"

"Craig! Glen!" I heard Dennis shouting. "I want Nitro 9 canisters around the cavern mouth!"

"I thought you said-"

"We need to wall this thing off until we can find a way to kill it. Marlene! Steve! Make a distraction so they can get into Equipment Bay 30!"

The room erupted in a chaos of yelling and growling noises. I watched in horror as a pasty faced kid with glasses stumbled backwards in a spray of blood, collapsing at my feet.

I retreated half a yard, and to my relief Gina, and Israel, the tattooed guy, stepped in to drive the creature elsewhere.

"This is not a good place for you, Señorita Ripley," Jorge said. "El Chupacabra no es your friend."

I nodded, making steps towards the crew quarters.

I stopped. "Wait. Where is Brett?"

He looked blank for a moment. "Su novio?"

I nodded.

"Ah." He frowned at the crowd. "You can see it is not easy for to find anyone, señorita. Maybe you go and I tell him you are safe? Sí?"

I sighed. "I guess you've got a point."

That's when I notice a trim muscular brown figure flailing at the creature with a nasty looking morning star crafted from a chain and bits of metal debris.

"Brett!" I called.

Not the best thing to do during a fight.

My boyfriend, of course, turned his head to look, and the creature used this opportunity to knock him to the ground.

He screamed, but I couldn't see what was going on, due to Wes, Tarnisha, and two others prowling around in front of me with weapons.

I pushed past Leroy from the kitchen staff (the hippie stoner was brandishing a meat cleaver), but I nearly got trampled by the chaotic movement of the mob.

People yelled and screamed while the animal shrieked

I feared Brett was gone for good.

"Brett..." I said with tears brimming in my eyes.

"You mind not standing on my leg?"

"Brett!"

He was right behind me. I thought he was another corpse.

With all the cuts and slashes across his body, he already looked like one.

I quickly helped him to his feet, shoving people away to make room, and we staggered to a clear spot in the crush of bodies.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"It ain't good," he wheezed, probably from a crushed rib cage or something else equally bad. "But the fucker didn't cut anything vital. Probably need stitches, though."

That's when I heard someone yelling, "Nitro 9 is in place!"

"Craig! Gina!" Dennis said. "Help me draw it into the cavern!"

"No way!" Gina protested. "This is suicide!"

"Ms. Martinez, your odds for survival aren't any better if you stay out here. At least if we draw it out, the others will have a chance to survive."

"That's a great plan," she said sarcastically. "Send someone else in as bait."

Tarnisha pushed past me. "I'll do it."

"But you have a daughter!" I said, but I guess she couldn't hear me over the noise.

Figuring Tarnisha understood the stakes more than anyone, let her go.

"When give the signal," Dennis called. 'I want everyone to fall back!"

We held our position, waiting for the order.

I couldn't see much in the direction of the cave due to the people in front of me, but one shouted phrase made a chill run down my back.

"Nitro 9 isn't igniting!"

I heard people arguing indistinctly, something about how the explosive charges were damp, or the contacts were damaged, then people renewed their attacks on the creature.

I saw the beast rip through the cook, leaving his skinny long haired body sprawled in a pool of blood, and then it was towering over me.

The thing reminded me of the statues I'd seen around the entrance to the throne room, except it was dark and dripping steaming slime.

The eyeless head, pockmarked with weapon wounds and bristling with shiny bits of metal, appeared to stare at me and sniff. Its jaw distended as it made low gurgling sounds.

"Stand perfectly still," Brett whispered, but I wondered how much advice I should take from a man who tried to kill the creature with a whip with a spiky ball at the end.

And then I felt the first contraction. I was going into labor.

"No!" I gasped. "Not here!"

Another contraction. And another.

The baby wanted to come out. And it wanted to come out now.

"No! No! Please no!"

My boyfriend, already pale from his wounds, suddenly looked paler when he noticed my frantic puffing, the tell-tale cries of birth pain.

"Oh God! Do you have to do that _here_?"


	17. Chapter 17: Say It From Your Chest

The creature seemed to look at me like an hors d'oeuvre, some kind of little nugget you savored a bit before eating. Its steaming drool appeared to increase as its eyeless head pointed my way.

"Hey!" I heard Jorge shouting as he stabbed it with his crude spear. "¡Puta feo! ¡Aquí!"

The beast shrieked and ripped him open.

I cried, though I wasn't sure if it were from the loss of a friend or the baby trying to come out.

Brett gripped my arm, tugging me down the hallway, out of the crowd.

"C'mon. We've got to get you to the medical bay."

Letting out a cry of pain, I nodded, stumbling in that direction, letting him half lead, half carry me into Venn's office.

"Where's the doctor!" I practically screamed as he laid me down on the examination table.

"Just breathe," Brett soothed. "Breathe. Remember your Lamaze lessons."

"Some lessons!" I groaned. "It was only a video!"

"Still. You gotta do what it says, and breathe."

Despite what he said, I puffed air like a chimney, grimacing with the pain and effort.

Brett clutched my hand, gently massaging it. "Calm down. Just breathe."

I squirmed, letting out an agonized animal noise. "I'd like to see you try it!"

And then, in between frantic inhalations, I gasped, "Isn't my water supposed to break first?"

"Dunno," Brett said. "It was my assumption that it would."

His expression grew dark. "Unless something went wrong."

That made me cry.

He squeezed my hand. "Baby, let's not jump to conclusions. It could be nothing."

"It sure doesn't feel like nothing!" I yelled.

I moaned. I puffed. I squirmed on the table.

"Where is that damned android doctor!" I screamed.

"It's triaging," Brett muttered. "Going to the most injured people first."

Puff puff puff.

"Do you know anything about delivering a baby?" I gasped.

"No," Brett admitted. "Only what I've seen in movies. I'm pretty sure there's more to it than blankets and hot water. I wasn't lying when I said you were my first."

"I'm going to die," I moaned.

I grabbed my boyfriend by the collar, dragging him down to my face. "Find me a doctor!" I yelled. "Any doctor! Get a med school student if you have to! Someone who knows something about vaginas! Hurry!"

Brett laughed.

"What's so funny!" I growled.

He rolled his eyes. "Nothing."

He shot me a worried look. "You sure you'll be okay in here by yourself."

I scowled. "I'm not okay right now. I need a doctor, so yes. Go!"

And so he ran out of the door as fast as he could, leaving me to puff and try to slow my breath.

I stared absently at the ceiling as the baby struggled against me. An arched cavern roof scraped clean of stalactites. It was a low section of cave, and the concrete walls had been built straight up into the roof. Right now, it felt claustrophobic, doing nothing to take my mind off the tight squeeze going on my body.

I puffed and looked between my legs at the video monitor on the wall facing the table. Giant waves crashing on a beach. There was another visual I didn't need right now.

"I'm about to give birth!" I screamed. "Someone get their ass in here right now!"

That's when I saw the man.

A strange, silent, movie star handsome African American.

He had a lab coat like a doctor, but something seemed _off_.

I'd never seen this man before, and that is saying something when you have spent so much time on the base that you recognize everyone's faces, even from the far off drilling sites.

The man's lab coat didn't appear to be regulation issue. The collar was up and fan-like, sort of like Dracula, and while it had buttons they were only decorative, and it had a rope tie around the waist, like a robe.

He was weird, but in a cute sort of way, and his eyes seemed to see right into the depths of my soul.

The man didn't talk. He only smiled at me, purring as he tilted his head like a curious mountain lion.

He then placed his hand on my belly.

All at once, I felt the muscles relaxing, the baby relaxing, and I wasn't quite sure if I had experienced a miscarriage or the baby just suddenly decided to chill out.

I breathed a sigh of relief, smiling at the man.

The stranger raised a hand, waving goodbye, and when he did, I noticed the hand was a black chitinous claw.

I should have been horrified, but I found myself only mouthing "Thank you."

The man turned and walked out the door.

A second later, Brett returned, dragging the good Doctor Venn behind him.

"So!" the android called as he strolled in. "What seems to be the matter?"

"I was going into labor," I said. "I thought the baby was coming."

I stared at the two, wondering how I could ask about my visitor without looking crazy.

"Did you see a guy leaving here just a few minutes ago? A young African American guy? Kind of narrow build? Doesn't talk much?"

Venn shook his head like a guinea pig with a carrot being waved back and forth in front of its nose.

My boyfriend said, "Unh-uh."

"You sure?" I said. "He stepped out at the same time you came in."

Brett looked at me like I were crazy. "We didn't see anything, honey."

"I'll have to review my visual recordings," the doctor said. "My sensors did not appear to detect anything."

An awkward silence followed.

"Does the water have to break for her to have a baby?" Brett asked.

"It helps," the doctor said. "As a general rule of thumb. In some isolated cases on record, this didn't occur, and the baby was delivered via c-section, but it's generally a strong indicator that the baby is ready to come out. Of course, you don't want to wait until then to seek medical assistance."

He lifted up my shirt, exposing my belly, staring at it, running his cold hands across the skin. If a human doctor did something like that, a person would probably try to revoke his license, but our doctor had medical sensors in his eyes and fingers.

"What did you take?" he exclaimed. "This baby looks comatose!"

"What!" I cried in alarm. "Nothing!"

And then I thought of my visitor. "That man..." I muttered unthinkingly.

"Honey?" Brett's face was showing that "she's crazy" expression again.

"Nothing," I groaned, staring at the door.

"Wait," Brett said. "Aren't fetuses _supposed_ to be comatose? I mean, there really isn't that much to do in there..."

"Not like this," Venn said. "The baby almost looks listless. Depressed, even."

My boyfriend frowned. "I thought that's what was supposed to happen _after they got out_! I know _I'd_ be depressed!"

I shuddered in horror. "Is he...dead?"

"No no no," Venn said. "The baby's fine! Pulse, heart rate, neural and electrical activity all normal for a fetus that size and weight." He shrugged. "Insufficient data."

"But everything's fine," Brett repeated.

"Yes. It doesn't look like she's going to give birth right now, but it's good to be safe and check anyway."

Before we could discuss anything else, I hear someone yelling for the doctor, and I see Israel and Spotted Owl dragging a wounded man up to the other exam table.

"What do we have here?" Venn said as he hurried over to the victim.

"It's the damnedest thing," Israel said. "First the thing claws the shit out of him, then it tackles him to the floor and gives him mouth to mouth. I just stared at the bitch, going, `what the fuck!' Then I noticed he was having breathing problems."

Doctor Venn frowned. "Let's get him on the table and have a look at him."

I stared at the bloody figure they laid on the rubber pads. Square jaw, tan skin, hawk-like nose. Ephraim Lemos, the section B32 Device Specialist. His brother was the hydroponics tech, and an internet certified rabbi.

Spotted Owl glanced at me. "What's wrong with her?"

"Junior's getting a little rambunctious," Venn said as he prodded the victim's side. "Went into a false labor."

"Sure felt like a true one to me," I muttered.

"You'll get that," he said, spraying antiseptic on Ephraim's wounds. "A few false alarms are common to the process." He poked the man's chest, then pried his mouth open, staring inside.

"This man has a large object lodged in his primary bronchi. His airway is so obstructed that I am unable to determine how he is even breathing."

All of a sudden, I hear a muffled explosion, and dust rains down from the ceiling.

"I think it's safe to say they exploded the Nintro 9," Israel said with a wry smirk. "Either that or it's a _reeally big_ cave in."

The victim screamed and thrashed on the table as his comrades held him down.

"Whoa!" Israel said as he fought down a swinging arm. "Looks like you're not the only one who's giving birth, Rippers!"

Israel always called me that.

He was actually a cool guy, except he talked too much. He was always telling stories, to anyone who would listen. And he was a terrible flirt.

"Can we do some kind of surgery to get that thing out?" he was asking.

Venn froze up, the robotic version of "I don't know."

"There are things inside this entity that may be hazardous to break open, even if we successfully penetrate the appropriate section of the body without causing a fatal event."

The victim screamed as he writhed on the table.

Venn injected him with a morphine derivative.

"Is that such a good idea, doc?" Israel asked. "I mean, I know from my experience with barbiturates that when your airway's obstructed, the last thing you want to do is swallow your tongue and make it worse!"

"He's in a lot of pain," Venn muttered. "And we're not going to help him any when he's moving around like that."

He placed the sonogram device on the man's chest.

A hologram of an egg appeared in the air above his chest, a rounded soft thing that reminded me of ant or cockroach eggs under a microscope.

Shuddering, I looked away.

Turning to Brett, I said, "C'mon. Let's get out of here. I think I'm okay."

Brett helped me down, leading me to the door.

Before I could step out, Brett held up a warning hand. "Wait a minute. It might not be safe."

After peering outside, checking in both directions, he hurried me across the hall.

Once inside crew quarters, he said, "Looks like they pulled off the cave-in. I'll have to sneak up there and see if they've got the thing contained, and where our heroes are."

"I think I'm okay," I groaned. "You mind if I sneak behind you?"

"I'd prefer if you didn't. You almost gave birth last time. If some heavy shit goes down, I want to be able to get out of there in a hurry. Can you stay here for a second? I promise this won't take long."

I nodded. "Okay! I guess I need to take it easy, anyway."

He gave me a kiss and ran off.

I curled up on a futon, watching one of those ancient movies from our system archives, something with Adam Sandler in it.

It would have been nice to get something more modern, but the new data laws prevented us from acquiring ones that came out last year, even if management permitted the additional expense of transporting the data across space. Until then, we'd have to remain in a time warp, watching old romanticomedies with outdated jokes and period clothing.

Still, it was beter than contemplating the horrors I had just witnessed.

My eyelids drooped as I tried to follow an unfunny scene where Sandler lets the woman down and totally makes an ass of himself.

When my eyes opened again, I found myself standing in front of a wall of rubble, clad, once again, in the strange purple robe from the throne room, with crumbs all over it.

Three people stood around me. Dennis, Tarnisha, and Craig, a sullen looking young man with freckled arms and shot cropped red hair.

A thick cloud of dust hung over this cavern where we buried our dead.

This was the last place I wanted to be.

"What am I doing here?" I cried. "What is this?"

They only stared at me, creeping cautiously backward as they aimed weapons at my person.

"We don't want to hurt you," Dennis said.

"The hell!" Craig muttered. "Speak for yourself!"

I shivered.

Dennis crept closer. "All we want is some shiny rocks out of these caves. If you leave us alone, we'll leave you alone. Do you understand me?"

I frowned. "Why are you talking to me like that? What's wrong with you?"

"What's it doing?" Craig asked.

"I don't know," said Tarnisha. "It's like it's trying to talk or something."

I put my hands on my hips and sighed. "Will you guys stop playing games and tell me what the hell is going on?"

Craig burst out laughing. "Oh my God, what is it doing now? _I'm A Little Teapot_?"

"It's almost like it understands us!"

Dennis crept closer to me. "Do you understand me?" he said in my face.

I looked at him like he were a moron.

It wasn't the first time for that.

"I've never understood you," I said. "But I never let that stop me before."

"If you can understand me, then nod once."

I nodded. "This is so stupid."

"If we put down our weapons, will you leave us alone and not harm us?"

I rolled my eyes, nodding again.

"Do you know another way out of this cave?"

As I was shaking my head, Craig replied, "I thought you knew these tunnels like the back of your hand."

Rolling my eyes, I told Dennis, "You think I'd be standing around in this dirty cave if I knew how to get out?"

I leaned my back against the wall of rubble, staring into the cave.

"I think that's a `no' on the cave exit, boss," Craig said.

"You think we can get it to move these rocks away?" Tarnisha asked. "I mean, it's not harming us or anything. And it looks pretty strong."

"Why would I do that?" Dennis said. "It would defeat the whole purpose of setting off the explosives! The point was to get this thing contained so it can't harm any more employees. We don't know when it'll feed again."

"We still have the CAT positioned at the tomb," Craig said. "What if we use that thing to make a crack in this pile? Just so we can get some air?"

"In case you haven't noticed, we have an unstable wild animal occupying this space, so it's not going to matter if we can breathe in here or not. In fact, we'd be safer if it were a complete vacuum, so it can suffocate."

"You _do_ realize I can hear you," I said, but they ignored me.

I slid down on the floor, trying to make myself comfortable against the mountain of debris.

"Look!" Tarnisha said. "It's resting! Maybe it's full or something!"

"It _was_ eating a lot," Dennis muttered.

Tarnisha stared at me. "It's stuffed like my cousin Antoine at Thanksgiving dinner!"

"I guess that's why it's acting so calm," Craig said.

The girl looked worried. "How much air we got left?"

"Not enough," said Dennis. "Air is pumped from the base, and all the air supply lines are connected to the walls we just collapsed. We're going to have to find a way back around, and fast."

He opened a large metal crate, digging through the tools and equipment.

"Once we get out, the first thing I'm going to do is find a way to sandwich this creature behind another wall of debris, sort of bury it alive and set up operations around it."

"Who's going to be the bait this time?" Craig said.

Tarnisha shook her head violently. "Not me! I sure as hell ain't gonna let nobody bury me in no wall! Unh-uh!"

Dennis dug a small black device out of a crate, pushing buttons.

"What if we use the AE's to reopen the air flow?" Tarnisha asked.

The boss frowned at the mound of rocks. "I'm afraid it's more complicated than that. The explosives also deactivated the blowers. What we need to do is find a Cave-In Kit and use its air masks until we find another way back to base, or passage into Base D."

Base D was a ghost town, abandoned due to serious health, mechanical and budgetary issues. Supply belonged to the company, so they just left it there. For a long time, the standard answer to any supply question was, "Did you check in Base D?"

That was actually the problem with the place. It had been picked clean.

Hydroponics was dead because we gutted it. The same goes for air equipment, food, and other vital supplies.

"What good is Base D?" Craig asked. "The last I checked, the place didn't have much more than a few cases of moldy rice cakes, some astronaut cooking manuals and some ballooning cans of carrots."

"They have a vehicle," Dennis said.

"No, they have a chassis with missing wheels and dismantled engine."

Dennis sighed. "It's all we've got within a ten mile radius. Unless you want to try your luck with the bog mummies in the crypt."

"Remind me again why I risked my life to do this?"

"We're trying to save the crew from _that_." Dennis pointed at me. "Now _if you're not too busy_, I'd like you to help me locate the nearest Cave-In Kit."

The three of them turned and walked away.

I thought about joining them but they seemed to be talking about me like I were a piece of furniture, so I didn't bother until they disappeared from view.

I got up, quietly sneaking behind them.

"What happens when it gets back up?" Craig was saying. "What happens if it gets hungry again and comes after us?"

Dennis responded by taking out a knife and shoving it into Craig's chest, twisting up and sideways until the man stopped breathing, collapsing on the cavern floor.

"There," he muttered. "That'll keep it busy."

I awoke in a cold sweat, staring at my surroundings in bewilderment.

I was still in crew quarters. The video system was showing the credits of the movie I had nodded off to, gaffers, grips and visual effects supervisors. I shut the device off.

I found Brett sitting in a chair to one side of the screen, smiling at me.

"That must have been some nightmare."

"I'll say," I groaned. "Was I talking in my sleep or something?"

He chuckled. "You were calling someone a fool or an idiot. I hope it wasn't me!"

I shook my head. "What about that creature? Did they get it contained?"

Brett nodded. "That's an affirmative, ma'am. They set the detonation perfectly. I don't think it'll be coming back anytime soon."

"What about Dennis? Tarnisha?"

He shook his head. "Dennis may be a bastard, but this time he really saved our butts. I guess, under that gruff exterior, there's a man who only wants what's best for the crew. He really isn't such a bad guy."

I thought about what I saw in the dream, Dennis shoving the knife up into Craig's chest like a professional killer.

"Yeah," I muttered, but only to avoid sounding crazy. It _was_ only a dream, after all. "So where is Tarnisha? Is she with him in the cave?"

"Yeah," he said. "Her and Craig. All three of them were the bait."

I shivered, disturbed by how closely my dream matched reality.

Of course, there have been times when I've fallen asleep next to my music system or a movie and dreamed about people singing. Maybe people were talking about Dennis and the monster next to my bed?

"You think there's any way for them to get back?"

He shook his head no, but said, "Not sure. I mean, Dennis might have an idea. Maybe they'll get the hydroponics working in Base D again or something."

There it was again. I never would have thought of going to Base D when trapped in a cave-in.

"Was anyone talking around me while I slept?" I said. "Were you having any conversations in here?"

Brett chuckled. "I did chat with Izzy for a bit. Something about doing a bit with the space marines and blowing up a terrorist. Why? Did you dream about demolitions?"

Israel. Who knows what crazy stories he put in my brain? I smiled and shook my head.

Setting my bare feet on the cold carpet, I said, "You think we can leave a rover outside the base so they can get back?"

He looked at me like I'd grown another head. "You seriously want to do all that for the man? After all he's done to you? When we don't even know if they'll go over there?"

"He's got Tarnisha with him," I said. "She has a daughter back home."

"I'll see if I can get authorization for the vehicle. I'm pretty sure it'll get a pass, being it's Dennis and all. It's not like we've got any other plans with this wall closed."

Hearing screaming, I jumped to my feet.

"I thought you said that thing was trapped."

"I did."

He crept to the exit, motioning for me to stay back as he searched the hallway.

We saw Spotted Owl popping out of the medical bay door. She met our gaze, sadly shaking her head.

I guessed it was our patient again. I breathed a sigh of relief, hurrying across the corridor.

The man had gotten worse. He was coughing up blood, his skin pale and veiny.

He writhed and screamed on the table, his wrists and ankles tied in place to keep him from hurting himself.

"What's going on?" I said to the doctor.

"It seems the egg is hatching."

"I was right," Izzy said. "He _is_ giving birth. _Wish I wasn't right_!"

"And you can't..._excise_ it," I said.

"No," Doctor Venn replied. "Due to the unpredictable nature of the creature's birth cycle, and the way it attaches itself to his internal-"

Before he could continue, Ephraim's chest exploded in a shower of gore and ragged chunks of bloody organs.

Israel swore, leaping back.

A rounded serpentine head emerged from the victim's body, an ugly little face, featureless save for a mouth full of razor sharp teeth.

I should have screamed, but instead I found myself calmly saying, "I've seen this before."

I don't know why I said it.

I slowly marched up to the disgusting blood covered little beast, stroking its head.

"Honey," Brett cried. "I don't think you should-"

He fell silent when he noticed the creature purring softly, rubbing itself against my hand.

"Oh my God, what..."

He couldn't even form a sentence to communicate his shock. The expression on his face said that he found my behavior more bizarre and frightening than the thing that had burst from the man's chest, maybe even the horrors of the alien funhouse we went through.

"How the fuck...?"

I only gave him a shrug, not knowing how to explain any of it.

I gave the creature a dismissive pat and it sunk back inside the victim, like our exchange had been completely ordinary.


End file.
